Las many college students, what feels like an endless pandemic, Johns Hopkins University students will not be returning to campus this fall. But there is still a way for them to attend school, albeit a fantastic one – through the video game Minecraft.
The Baltimore-based university gives every enrolled student free access to the game, in which players interact in a digital world they build together.
The game lets users collaborate, build and mine to design their virtual world. They first opt for a ‘biome’, as a site for their city, which they can adapt to when building roads, structures and landscapes.
The plan is for Johns Hopkins to provide students with measurements to create an accurate replica of campus in the game, allowing students to access it through the university’s internal platform, a spokesman said.
A recent TikTok over announcement announces that students have been notified that traditional school events such as the annual Autumn Festival Hoptoberfest will take place on Minecraft. “Do not suffer, I’m pretty excited,” the TikTok user wrote.
The move is part of a concerted effort to give students’ opportunities to do ‘virtual’ despite studying remotely this semester, a spokeswoman said.
“Build the campus [on Minecraft] offers students ways to use technology, computer and memory as they create the exterior and interior of our campus, ”she said. “It brings the feel and appearance of the campus digitally to undergraduate students studying at a distance who missed being connected to campus and interior spaces, such as libraries, labs and lounge spaces.”
However, not every student is so excited. A petition started by one undergrad claims that the educational version of Minecraft is not worth using, even during a pandemic (a spokeswoman for the school said it has not yet decided which version of the game students will offer). The petition notes that the educational version limits the number of students that can mix up to 30 at one time, which, like the student who started it, “will make events boring and awkward”.
Similarly, Matthew, an incoming newcomer to Johns Hopkins, said he was annoyed to see the announcement, even though he himself was a recreational Minecraft player.
“There’s definitely a place to build community using online games and tools like Minecraft or other systems,” said Matthew, who asked to be identified by a nickname to speak freely about his school. “But it can never replace legitimate personal contact.”
Said Matthew many students were overwhelmed, the school waited until just weeks before classes began to confirm that they would be taught remotely this semester, and that Minecraft’s announcement felt like a bad attempt to make up for it. On August 6, the school reversed plans to allow students to return to campus and announced all classes online.
“It felt like they ‘Hey, I know your first year of college, a time you have to discover yourself and meet close friends has been canceled – but it’s OK, because here’s a Minecraft account,'” he said. “They were trying to make us better about something they were not doing well.”
Johns Hopkins is not the first to introduce Minecraft as a social tool. Columbus State University hosted its newcomer orientation event, usually a four-day on-campus affair, on the gaming platform in July. Students at Brown University created their own campus model in April to give potential students tours despite the pandemic.
While these games will recreate the physical appearance of the campus, there will be many aspects of student life that simply do not translate into pixels, Matthew said.
“The biggest thing we will miss is circumstantial contact,” he said. “I will not be able to be in the library and find someone I might not have classes with and make a connection.”
Other students are still excited to find some form of social contact at a time when school cancellations seem unforgettable. Xin Zhang, an incoming sophomore, said it seems unlikely that Johns Hopkins, who himself has become one of the leading sources on the Covid-19 distribution, would reopen the campus as soon as the virus is spreading in the US.
“I’m bummed out, but it’s pretty irreplaceable,” he said. “I’m excited about using Minecraft. We use Zoom and FaceTime almost every day – this is just one more way to connect. ”
.
