The college awarded 231 graduate degrees and 392 undergraduate degrees.
SPRINGFIELD – NASA Astronaut Catherine Coleman told graduates of Bay Path College they are prepared for the next step in their lives – even if they are not sure what that will be.
Coleman, who recently returned from spending six months on the International Space Station and also flew into space twice on the Space Shuttle Columbia in her 20 years with NASA, was awarded an honorary doctorate during Bay Path’s graduation Sunday. Springfield Symphony Orchestra music director Kevin Rhodes was also awarded an honorary degree.
Sunday’s ceremony was moved from the school’s Longmeadow campus to the MassMutual Center. A total of 231 graduates were awarded master’s degrees, 392 received bachelor’s degrees, 68 received associates degrees and four received degrees in specialist in education.
“Today, Bay Path women, you are launching. It is a launching of the rest of your life,” Coleman told the graduates.
During her speech, she presented a short slide show and talked about her experiences on the International Space Station, important experiments done on osteoporosis, being the second person to ever dock a supply ship using a robotic arm and the importance and difficulty of finding time for family as well as a career.
Coleman, who earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and doctoral degree in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said she had no instant answer for those who want to follow her footsteps into space. Being in the right place is important, she said, as is making good career decisions at the right time.
“How did I get to be in this group of three (on the Space Station). It is hard work. It is perseverance,” she said. “We just try to do the best we can.”
She said she always studied hard for any mission, practiced anything she needed and otherwise prepared, but still worried she would make a mistake.
“You have skills and you are going to test them, and you don’t know what will happen,” she said.
Rhodes, who just passed his 10th anniversary at Springfield Symphony Orchestra, told students he was the first person in his family to go to college and he did it because he wanted to make music.
He had a little advice of his own for graduates, telling them that the smartest and sometimes the most talented are not always the best.
“The most successful people are the ones who work the hardest and never stop,” he said.
Three students also gave brief speeches and two were given special commencement awards during the graduation.
Meghan K. Golden, of Wilbraham, who earned a bachelor of science degree in business, reminded her classmates that this year’s campus theme was “the power of choice,” and told them that will be even more important in the future.
“The choices we make from this day on will define us,” she said.