The individuals who braved the icy roads to sit in Rec Hall Saturday looked as much like a bunch of kids graduating from high school as a group of young adults getting ready to face the rest of their lives.

As these students became part of the more than 400,000 University alumni, there were a noticeable number of students missing, many due to the adverse weather conditions.

"We almost didn't make it in time," said Muriel Olivier of Normandy, France, who journeyed 35 hours to see her son Mathias graduate. After a five-hour delay at the airport in Philadelphia, Olivier and her daughter barely arrived in State College in time for her son's 4 p.m. chemical engineering graduation.

David Laird, who traveled from Erie to see his son John become a civil engineering graduate, said those who weathered the storm to make it to the ceremony reflected the extent of achievement earned by four years at the University.

The three ceremonies took place in full amid the weather-heightened coughing, sneezing and throat clearing of the crowds.

During the speeches there was the occasional individual listening intently to the advice of the various speakers. But mostly, there were the groups of friends whispering and laughing among themselves in anticipation of an evening of reckless abandon.

"Some of you may feel like experts at starting things, school, friendships . . . you may feel you've had enough of the forced spoon-feeding," said Forrest J. Remick, commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in his address to graduating students from the Colleges of Engineering and Health and Human Development and the School of Communications.

Even four years of college could not get more than a handful of students to sit in the first few rows. And there was, of course, in the spirit of MTV's popular pair of idiot commentators, the pair of students snickering about the speaker's appearance and words.

Louise Stubing, a graduate of hotel, restaurant and institutional management, said although the event was reminiscent of a high school graduation, the underlying feelings were quite different.

"You're not just going off to school again, you're starting the rest of your life," said Stubing, who will begin work next week at a hotel in Shorthills, N.J.