'Get this man a scholarship ASAP,' another said. His post there in late April quickly exceeded more than 100 upvotes and dozens of comments by early May - 'This is awesome! Also a really great idea for incoming freshmen too,' one user commented. Sierhej said he felt renewed energy for the project after receiving positive feedback on it through the unofficial NJIT subforum on Reddit. At the latest, 'I would like to have it done before I get done with my bachelor's degree,' he noted. The virtual campus could be finished as soon as this summer - it's mostly just exteriors for now, although he already built the inside of the campus center. He has not yet uploaded the files to public Minecraft servers but hopes to do that soon.

Sierhej worked in Minecraft's creative mode, where players build all day, without the need to make alliances, battle enemies and ultimately slay a dragon, as in the videogame's competitive mode. I think being a commuter was one of the reasons I did this,' Sierhej explained. 'If I was a resident, I don't think I would be quite as nostalgic toward rebuilding the campus. It's a trend nationwide, as students at Boston University, Northwestern, Penn and UCLA modeled their campuses, too. Sierhej, a junior who commutes from Linden, said he was inspired to build the virtual campus because he missed being at the real one during the height of the COVID pandemic.

New Jersey Institute of Technology has a new campus, but you can only go there by computer because civil engineering major Pawel Sierhej built it entirely in Minecraft.

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