University President Michael Adams said the University awarded more than eight thousand degrees this year to students. Many of them gathered at Stegeman Coliseum on Friday morning for the commencement ceremony.

Alice Serres was one of these graduates. She stood outside of the coliseum in her black cap and gown waiting for a friend before going in to join the rest of her graduating class. The fabric design major from Suwannee was excited, but did not feel the full weight of commencement yet.

More than eight thousand degrees were awarded to students this year. Many of those were at Friday's commencement ceremony in Stegeman Coliseum. KRISTY DENSMORE / Staff

“It’s kind of surreal. It hasn’t really hit me yet,” she said.

Serres said she felt she was entering into a new world.

“[Graduating means] not knowing what to do,” she said. “Not having a plan, having to figure out for yourself, finally realizing there’s a big world out there, and there’s really no rulebook to follow and you have to make up your own plan.”

The commencement lasted about two hours, but graduating student speaker Trey Sinyard stressed it took him and other graduates much longer to reach this point in their academic careers.

“You have lived over one thousand days during your time at the University of Georgia,” Sinyard said in his remarks.

Sinyard, an Athens native who graduated with a double major in finance and biochemistry, joked, “How many do you remember? How many do you want to remember?”

He also poked fun at rival university Georgia Tech.

“We’ll all be forever grateful we chose to come here instead of that trade school on North Avenue in Atlanta,” he said.

James Shepherd, co-founder of the Shepherd Center, delivered the commencement address. He told his personal story about his life after graduating from the University in 1973 with a business degree.

Shepherd graduated with a plan to backpack around the world, but his trip ended after he sustained a spinal cord injury while bodysurfing in Rio de Janeiro. He was left paralyzed from the neck down at 22 years old.

Shepherd and his family started the Shepherd Center two years later. It is now a 132-bed rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta serving patients like Shepherd himself, who has gained back his ability to walk with the assistance of a cane and leg brace.

“Remember, as you go forward in life, it’s not so much what happens to you, it’s what you do about it,” he said.

Adams awarded Shepherd and his parents honorary degrees from the University before conferring degrees to the hundreds of students in sitting in foldout chairs on the floor of Stegeman.

He gave the same statement for each section of graduating students, ranging from the hundreds of business students to the less than a dozen engineering students.

“By the authority vested in me as the president of the University of Georgia by the board of regents, I now confer all of you the appropriate degree,” he said.

But for the one student graduating from the school of social work, Adams changed his statement from “all of you” to just “you,” as she was the only graduate from the school.

During his opening remarks Adams emphasized what a milestone this was for the students.

“You have worked with great diligence and with great dedication to reach this important moment,” he said. “You are now part of a unique and distinctive body. You are part of a whole, the alumni of this University.”

Photo Gallery: http://redandblack.com/2011/12/16/photo-gallery-fall-commencement-ceremony/