Graduation day got off to a great start for Yinghsang Liu.

The native of Taiwan, who has spent the last seven years studying for a doctorate in communication, information, and library studies, received a job offer – a faculty position at Charles Sturt University in Australia – hours before the ceremonies began on May 20.

He said he would likely take the job. “I am very excited by the opportunity there,” Liu said, as he stood beaming in his cap and gown minutes before graduates began to proceed into Voorhees Mall on the New Brunswick Campus.

Liu was one of about 11,433 graduates to celebrate commencement this year at the universitywide ceremony and more than two dozen convocation ceremonies across the Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick campuses.

While the struggling economy makes for a challenging job market, many graduates said they had already found work or planned to enter graduate school. Others said they were optimistic about their prospects.

“If you can get through these economic times, you can get through anything,” said Ankit Amin, 21, who graduated from Rutgers College with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. The Edison resident said he plans to work for a year before applying to medical school. He’s looking for a position as a lab technician.

“The real world is scary, but it feels like it’s time to move on,” Amin said.

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick officially conferred all undergraduate and graduate degrees during the ceremony marked by crystal-clear, sunny skies and much tradition. Gonfaloniers held large crossbars with banners from the university’s schools, while professors and students marched in colorful academic regalia. Family members poised with cameras lined up to capture the procession under the elm trees.

The only departure from annual traditions came on stage when graduates bypassed the annual handshakes as a precaution amid ongoing concerns about the H1N1 flu virus, also known as swine flu.

McCormick told the crowd that it was a momentous academic year, noting that Rutgers welcomed its first-ever entering class in which more than half identified themselves as other than white. In this tough economy, he said, the university started Rutgers Against Hunger (RAH), an antihunger initiative that has already put 14 tons of food in state food banks. RAH collected food during the ceremony as well.

“All of the graduates have completed one phase of their formal education, and all are well prepared for the challenging work and programs of study to which they have now chosen to devote themselves,” McCormick said.

Student speaker Key Jo Lee told the crowd that she selected art history as her lifelong pursuit. Lee, 35, of Willingboro, worked for 14 years after graduating from high school before coming to Rutgers. She said she was “blown away” by her first introductory art history class.

“I realized that art wasn’t just something pretty or interesting to look at, but rather a tool that can be used to understand the past, present, and future of our world,” said Lee, who graduated from Douglass College with a bachelor’s degree in art history.

Lee has been accepted into Yale’s joint doctoral program in African-American studies and art history. “At Rutgers, I have learned that I am [a] being of infinite possibilities, and my future has blossomed in ways I’d never imagined it could,” she said.

Marc Eckō, who served as the commencement speaker, urged graduates to take advantage of those possibilities and not be afraid of charting a new path in life. He left Rutgers’ College of Pharmacy in 1993 to pursue his dream of starting a fashion company.  He’s now one of the industry’s most successful designers and a philanthropist.

“It’s going to take a lot of new, innovative thought to get our world in order today,” said Eckō, who received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Rutgers also awarded three other honorary degrees during the commencement in New Brunswick: Faith Ringgold, a renowned artist and humanitarian, received a Doctor of Humane Letters; Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins, an internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer, received a Doctor of Fine Arts; and Philip G. Zimbardo, a professor emeritus at Stanford University known for his work in social psychology, received a Doctor of Science.

In Newark, Alfred C. Koeppe, president and chief executive officer of Newark Alliance and a graduate of Rutgers–Newark, Class of 1969, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and served as speaker at the joint Newark College of Arts and Sciences/University College convocation.

The Newark Campus graduated its largest-ever class of approximately 2,665 students from its eight schools this year. The oldest graduate was born in 1933, the youngest in 1989 – a 56-year gap that shows the breadth of the student population.

On May 21, Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker addressed graduates of the Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick.

The same day, the Camden Campus conferred 1,369 undergraduate and graduate degrees during three separate ceremonies, all held at the Susquehanna Bank Center on the Camden Waterfront.

During a morning ceremony, the Rutgers School of Business–Camden bestowed 283 undergraduate and MBA degrees. Alumnus Joseph Rigby, Class of 1978 and president and chief executive officer of energy provider Pepco Holdings, Inc., told graduates that the most important element to success is finding something to love.

“It doesn’t have to be a job,” he said. “Find something that you’d do for free – something positive that is uniquely yours and makes you feel really good about yourself.”

Monique Jenkins, an honors student who graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in Camden, said she doesn’t think she’ll have any problems finding a job teaching foreign language at the elementary or high school level. She said commencement put her in a reflective mood.

“It’s a little surreal,” she said of graduation. “I can still remember my first day on campus – what I wore, the music I listened to. Now four years later, so much has changed. I’ve gotten older and a little bit wiser.”