Nearly 3,500 University students took big steps into their futures Friday.Approximately 79 percent of those students walked across stage to receive Bachelor’s degrees, Chancellor Michael Martin said, and will be moving on to graduate school or the daunting “real world.””It hasn’t hit me yet,” said Andrew Remson, communication studies graduate. “This place has been my life for the last five years. I’m sure once the dust settles, it’ll be kind of hard to take in. But at the same time, it’s great to start a new chapter in my life, but it’s going to be hard to leave this one behind.”Remson and Ashley Bryant, a fellow communication studies graduate, realized shortly after the main commencement ceremony that they would both be attending graduate school at LSU and celebrated with smiles and a high-five.Students completing their graduate degrees this semester account for the other 21 percent of the 3,427 students moving on to new challenges in their lives.The 3,427 graduates represent 60 parishes, 44 states and 52 nations and range in age from 20 to 69, Martin said.”One thing they said was ‘this is our day,'” said Lawrence Burges, music composition graduate. “Besides getting married — which isn’t really ‘my day,’ because it’s more the bride’s day — this is pretty much the last day that will be mine besides just my birthday.”Eight-five percent of the undergraduates receiving diplomas began at the University as freshman — many of them in the fall of 2005, a semester that keynote speaker Sen. Mary Landrieu recalled presented more than its share of obstacles.”This is the Katrina class,” Landrieu said. “This is the class that started here late in the summer of 2005, checking into dorm rooms and looking forward to just a normal year — and we know what happened … This class lived through it. Many of them are survivors.”In addition to the obstacle Hurricane Katrina presented, Landrieu, a University alumna, also congratulated students on handling the challenges of college itself and said she was particularly excited for 42 students graduating with a 4.0 GPA.”A 4.0 eluded me, and I’m always very impressed with students who can graduate with perfect grades,” she said.Landrieu opened her speech with a promise to keep her words quick.”Blessed are the brief, for they will be invited back,” she joked. “I want to come back. It wasn’t that long ago I was here.”Landrieu focused much of her 15-minute speech on the importance of community service.”With your diploma in your hand, I hope that you will go forward and make the very best of life,” she told the graduates who were present.Students said they enjoyed hearing an “encouraging” speech from someone who had been in their shoes at the University.”She was very clear on her call to action as far as being a graduate — which was good to hear as a graduate,” Remson said. “It’s good to hear that her experience at LSU has kind of helped pave the way for her role as the senior senator of Louisiana.”Burges said he’s just relieved his education’s finished, so he can take the next steps forward in his life.”I’m ready to get a job — I don’t care if I work at Winn-Dixie. I just want to work and use the skills that I’ve gained here to create something of my own,” he said. “I’m going to finish a CD that I’ve been working on called ‘Free the Humans.’ I’m going to ahead and get that out and continue to write music and continue to serve the community — just work, just live.”—–Contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]