Inside the Science Center, around 50 computer science students chose to remain in the basement for several hours early this morning after learning about the shootout from social media and news outlets.

“I advised everyone in this room not to move,” said Anna V. Gommerstadt ‘13, a student teaching fellow for a computer science course that was holding office hours for her students in the Science Center basement when the news broke.

Gommerstadt chose to call HUPD when she heard about the shooting at MIT to ask if it was safe for her students to walk home.

“I wanted some concrete information,” she said.

Gommerstadt, who said she was told by the officer on the other end of the call to make a “judgement call” about whether or not it was safe to cross campus, expressed frustration at the lack of immediate communication from University alert systems.

“I’m a little confused as to why alerts from MessageMe have been rather infrequent, why [information] comes from students and not the administration,” she said.

Computer science student Jordan Dominguez ’15 said that when official alerts proved insufficient, students holed up in the Science Center basement relied on posts on from Reddit an online broadcast of the Cambridge Police Department scanner for information.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” she said of the frequency and nature of University communications. “We weren’t even told to stay indoors.”

—Staff writer Nicholas P. Fandos can be reached at nicholasfandos@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @npfandos.

—Staff writer Jared T. Lucky can be reached at lucky@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @jared_lucky.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.