Thousands of students at Colorado State University participated in the Fort Collins campus's first all-university commencement ceremony in nearly 30 years on Friday. An estimated crowd of more than 20,000 family and friends joined to celebrate the graduates.

"Honestly, it is pretty exciting, having everybody side by side graduating together," said JJ McKinney, a journalism school graduate.

McKinney and fellow graduate Kate Sherman graduated from the School of Journalism and Media Communications. 

"It has been one of the most rewarding moments of my life to see everything that has been my journalism career, and everything that has been my education in journalism, lead up to this moment," McKinney said. 

Both McKinney and Sherman credited the university's staff, especially those within Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation, for taking them under their wing and getting them to graduation.

Adding a cherry on top of finishing their degrees, the duo was treated to a commencement address from Eugene Daniels. 

Daniels, current president of the White House Press Correspondents Association and senior Washington correspondent for MSNBC, is a graduate of the same program. 

"Our commencement speaker is a journalist, and I am a journalism grad. So, it feels perfect for me," Sherman said. 

Daniels first attended CSU to play football and initially thought he was going to study to one day become a lawyer. However, he took an introduction to journalism course with Professor Pam Jackson. Jackson once told Daniels that if he didn't want to be a person in a position of power, he might enjoy holding people in power accountable. 

"I owe a lot to CSU and a whole lot to student media," Daniels said. "I came here as a football player, I found my love for journalism here, I found my career here."

Daniels said he was able to get an education and real world journalism experience on campus through the JMC department as well as RMSMC.

Both McKinney and Sherman followed a similar path.

"It is so inspiring to see someone who looks like me reach this level of prestige," McKinney said. "It shows that if he can do it, maybe one day I can do it too."

Daniels said it was humbling to hear other journalists, including young Black men like McKinney, have found inspiration in his career trajectory after CSU.

"It is overwhelming, and it makes me a little more emotional than I care to admit," Daniels said. 

Daniels said he hoped to convey a message of inspiration and motivation for students. He said he hoped students would know they belong in whatever room they find themselves in. 

Sherman said she was inspired by Daniels being selected as the commencement speaker. 

"It's exciting. A lot of times, journalists don't get the recognition they deserve. So, it is really inspiring as a young journalist seeing someone who came from where I come from getting the recognition they deserve," Sherman said. "It makes me confident that I chose a good school and got a good degree."