Trailed by a makeshift plow, ROSS MTANGI ’03 maneuvers his way through the snow behind Lowell House.

The biggest snowstorm to hit the Northeast in seven years left Harvard students navigating narrow paths between mounds of snow along the streets and sidewalks of the Square yesterday, splashing through the thin layer of slush that remained on the ground.

“It’s disgusting,” said Leyla R. Bravo ’05, a native of Miami, FL. “It’s just too much—I can’t take this,” she said, as the snow began to fall again yesterday afternoon.

“When people walk by you it goes flying. People are not considerate,” said Ariana I. Ornelas ’04. “And I like shoes with high heels, so I really don’t like walking in the snow.”

Despite some student speculation that the College might close for the first time since 1978 due to the inclement weather conditions, most undergraduates returned to class yesterday, in the wake of a blizzard that left more than a foot of snow on the ground.

“I love the snow,” said Conrad Kilroy, a Brandeis student standing with Bravo and Ornelas in front of the John Harvard statue yesterday. “I think it’s beautiful.”

And the fact that his school had cancelled classes, like several other colleges in the area, made the scene all the more pleasing, he said.

Ornelas said she wished Harvard had followed suit.

“There’s no justice in that,” she said.

MIT and Lesley University also closed their doors yesterday.

And at Harvard, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health and the Divinity School were closed, while Kennedy School and Law School officials cancelled morning classes.

But most College classes took place as scheduled, much to the chagrin of some unprepared undergraduates.

Vladimir P. Djuric ’06 said he expected classes to be cancelled.

“I was banking on it,” he said, “and I ended up doing homework at six in the morning.”

Some professors e-mailed students Monday night to tell them their classes were cancelled, and some sent announcements yesterday morning after snow-filled driveways and bad driving conditions kept them at home.

But those who were forced to cancel classes said they would still be able to stay on schedule.