UNIVERSITY PARK — Audrey Siems waited her turn as granddaughter Brittany Coulter hugged her way through a semicircle of family members.

Coulter had just graduated from Penn State, and Siems was visibly proud.

“She’s squeezing the juices out of me,” said Coulter, as her grandmother gripped her for a few seconds outside the Bryce Jordan Center on Saturday.

Coulter’s degree, a Bachelor of Science in human development and family studies, was one of more than 1,200 undergraduate degrees conferred by the university Saturday as part of its summer commencement ceremony. Coulter was one of a few hundred graduates who walked in the ceremony to celebrate the achievement.

For Coulter, a 22-year-old from Vandergrift, her fondest memories of Penn State came from her time in the Blue Band. She went with the band to the Outback Bowl after the 2010 season and “spent New Year’s on the beach.”

She’s the second child in her family to graduate from Penn State; and as her dad, Dave, boasted, he’s a member of the Class of 1976. He’s looking forward to her getting a job, and his daughter said she hopes to be an activities director at a long-term care nursing facility.

Fellow human development and family studies graduate Danyelle Weathers was also outside the Jordan Center hugging and snapping photos with her family. The looming structure across the street, Beaver Stadium, was the site of some of her best times here, namely her first football game.

“It was just the feeling of everybody being excited and as proud to be at Penn State as I was,” she said.

The 21-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y., has a job lined up as a program specialist with a child care center in State College. She began training on Monday.

The human development and family studies major was among the best represented Saturday. More than 60 people were expected to receive degrees, and they were among the 300 degrees conferred by the parent college, the College of Health and Human Development.

John Kreuzer, 24, was another Health and Human Development grad, with a degree in health policy and administration. After the ceremony, he went with his family for pictures at the Nittany Lion Shrine.

He was growing hungry as the clock approached 1 p.m.

“Hurry it up. I’m trying to get some food here,” he said, standing in front of shrine and chiding his family as they took turns posing for pictures with him.

First, Mom and Dad. Next, his sister. “Then we’re done,” he said.

For Kreuzer, of Mountain Top, graduation day has been six years in the making. He had some health problems and some difficult times in school, but he overcame all that.

“I never thought this day would come,” he said. “I don’t have a word to describe what it means.”

He’s hoping to work in the medical field, maybe information technology or product sales.

But first, lunch with the family at Otto’s.

Graduation day was a long time coming for 47- year-old Mary Beth Walleis, too, who grew up in Altoona, ended up in San Francisco and flew here to receive her bachelor’s degree in letters, arts and sciences. She took her 45 credits online through Penn State’s World Campus to finish the degree she began in the 1980s.

“Finishing my degree was something I always wanted to do,” said Walleis, who was known as Stephanie Walsh when she was a radio personality here in the ’80s. “It was always missing from my life and I was so happy to go back and finish it.”

It’ll also serve as a safety net, she said. She hosts a radio show in San Francisco, and given the state of the economy and the media industry, it’ll be a backup for her.

Just as the degree is special for her, so is Penn State. She choked up talking about what it means to her.

“I met my husband here,” she said, surrounded by her husband, Steve, and her in-laws.

And there was one person who Larissa Nunez wished could’ve been with her Saturday: her abuela (Spanish for grandmother), who died in February.

Her abuela was like her second mother, taking care of her when she had leukemia as a child, said Nunez, of Bergenfield, N.J., also a human development and family studies major.

She had a special message written on her cap: “Para mi abuela Leonor,” or “For my grandmother Leonor.”

Mike Dawson can be reached at 231-4616.