Wang said he was impressed by the way students had rallied together, and said life in New Haven was otherwise normal. He called the response by the school in making accommodations and rescheduling exams “flexible and reasonable.”
Wang said it was hard to imagine a motive for the attack, and said he was fearful that it might lead to a more restricted campus.
“This really took us off guard, it’ll be tough to see what happens next, how the investigation goes,” he said.
Delawala said that after learning yesterday that the FBI was interviewing students who had witnessed the explosion, he went back to the building and answered brief questions from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent and an FBI agent.
“It was clear I didn’t know anything, so they didn’t press me,” he said.
Last night, Delawala was back studying for exams, and said he thought the incident had been slightly mischaracterized as occuring in a near-empty campus and building.
“There were plenty of people in the building,” he said. “There was definitely not an accurate characterization to say the university was shut down and no one was there.”
Jared M. Gross ’03, whose brother Jed A. Gross attends YLS, found out about the blast when he returned Wednesday afternoon from studying for exams.
“I got back and read an e-mail from my roommate saying, ‘Your mom called, there was an explosion at Yale,’” Gross said.
When he saw a headline for the story on The New York Times website, Gross realized the severity of the blast.
“I realized it was not a trivial explosion, it was a bomb.” Gross said. “But based on the e-mail I knew my brother was okay and I knew that he had called home.”
Gross said that his contact with his brother had been “shoddy” since the attack, as his brother had not been allowed into his room since the bombing.
The rest of the university has continued to function normally. YLS plans to proceed with its commencement ceremonies as scheduled.
—Reporting from the Associated Press was used in this story.
—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Nathaniel A. Smith can be reached at nsmith@fas.harvard.edu.