A female first-year was assaulted by a man wielding a razor blade last Thursday afternoon on her way from 29 Garden St. to the Science Center.

The attack took place at 4:40 pm on Concord Avenue, between Garden Street and the Cambridge Common.

The 29 G resident, who requested anonymity, said she was walking along the street when "someone stepped out and said, 'You got some change?"

"I stopped because it's unusual [for someone to panhandle] so far away from the Square," she said.

"He turned towards me, reached out a hand towards my neck, held for about two seconds and then I ran off. There was a slash in my jacket from the razor blade," she said.

The student said she immediately went back to her room, left a message for her roommates, took a taxi to the train station and went home to Providence, Rhode Island. She said that she returned to Cambridge Sunday evening.

She described her attacker as a male, approximately 5' 11", "burly, with sandy hair, a straight nose, not particularly distinctive except for being very pale...[He was] wearing a sandy duffle coat."

She said the route she was walking is commonly used by students.

"It was surprising that at that time nobody wasthere," she said.

Garden Street residents have been told not towalk through the Cambridge Common after dark forsecurity reasons.

But the student said "it's an appropriate route[through the Common] before nine at night."

"It's the sort of thing that you risk everytime you go outside. This is Cambridge," she said.

Harvard Police Chief Paul E. Johnson said hisdepartment has not been informed of the incident