Standing outside after walking across the stage at Haskell Indian Coffin Complex to receive his diploma, Brandon Bandy paused for a moment.

“I guess I’m out in the real world now,” said the graduate in American Indian studies from Broken Arrow, Okla.

He and 175 others celebrated their academic achievements with family, friends and members of the Haskell community Friday.

Bandy said the realization still hadn’t set in yet, but he’d learn what the real world was like soon enough, having applied for a job with his Quapaw tribe with further goals of going to graduate school.

Other members of the Class of 2011 had their own dreams read out loud as they walked across the stage. One was entering the Marine Corps. Many had secured jobs as teachers and coaches, and others had accepted positions at graduate schools of social welfare, public health and a host of other fields.

Other graduates had simpler goals.

“I’m going to Disneyland,” one announced.

Keith Moore, director of the Bureau of Indian Education, gave the commencement address. He encouraged graduates to be, among other things, lifelong learners.

“Keep an open mind and be teachable through your whole life and your career,” Moore said. “We need leaders across this country today. I want you to be a good one. We need you to be a good one.”

At least one graduate had already taken Moore’s message on being a lifelong learner to heart.

Alex Tyner, a 62-year-old truck driver from Tulsa, Okla., had attended Haskell when it was a junior college, and he recently came back to school to finish his degree in American Indian studies.

He didn’t mind being reminded that he was slightly older than his classmates.

“I’m proud of that fact,” he said.

He lived in the dorms and served as resident assistant, and would always chuckle to himself when classmates would ask him to sign something, thinking he was an instructor.

But, like the rest of his classmates, he was able to take a moment Friday and take pride in his accomplishments with his family at his side.

“You’re never too old to learn,” he said.

Tyner is headed for graduate school in social work and wants to work with native people and help guide them to universities.

His classmates, too, expressed feelings of joy, mixed with some relief.

“I’m happy I got this far,” said bachelor’s graduate Brandie Chavez, of the San Felipe Pueblo reservation in New Mexico. “I didn’t really think I was going to make it.”