If you are reading this, you are doing something thousands of other people do every day.

The Northern Star is read by about 17,500 people every day which includes students, faculty, university employees and DeKalb residents. The Star is the college newspaper for NIU.

It is published Monday through Friday during the school year and weekly during the summer. It is completely run by students and is the 21st largest college newspaper in the nation.

The news section of the Star is covered by students who are general assignment reporters or who work on specific beats such as the Student Association, DeKalb, higher education, business affairs, greek affairs and minority affairs to name a few.

The Star also has state, nation and world news which is received from the Associated Press wire service.

There is an Issues page that contains editorials written by an editorial board which is made up of the editor-in-chief, managing editor and the editorial editor. Columns also appear on the page which are written by students working at the Star

Readers can have their thoughts published on the Letters page. The page gives readers the chance to respond to editorials or express opinions about the university and other news items.

The Fun and Games page contains new comic strips every semester done by students as well as syndicated strips. It also includes a crossword puzzle and horoscopes.

The sports sections covers all NIU sports, including football, basketball and baseball.

The Huskie Weekender is the Star’s feature section and appears in the paper every Thursday. The section includes reviews on anything from bands to movies to books, a random photo opinion poll and stories about upcoming events at NIU.

The Weekender also includes a soap opera update and a profile on a different NIU professor every week.

Students of many different majors work for in the different departments of the Star which includes advertising, payroll, photography, business, classifieds, public relations, production and the newsroom.