{"id":4162,"date":"2024-11-22T00:44:57","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T00:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/articles\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2024-11-22T01:10:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T01:10:15","slug":"i-might-move-to-level-4-next-year-and-thats-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/articles\/2024\/11\/22\/i-might-move-to-level-4-next-year-and-thats-ok\/","title":{"rendered":"I Might Move to Level 4 Next Year, and That’s OK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As of November 21, 2024, it has been 20 years to the day since I passed my Level 1 test. I was 18 years old, just out of high school, and the very definition of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I advanced to Level 2 in 2006, and was presented with the decision that many judges had faced before and have faced since: do I start working towards Level 3? What I want to present in this article is a reframing of this question: does it make sense for me to work towards Level 3?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>Judge levels are a communication tool, just like all certifications. They communicate a baseline suite of skills and knowledge. Knowing this, it\u2019s very tempting then to frame each next level as a \u201cbetter judge,\u201d since they have more skills and more knowledge. I want to challenge that framing.
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Back in the legacy Judge Program under The New New World Order<\/a>, the Level 3 advancement process was a monumental task. There was a large checklist you had to complete, an extensive interview process, and a stress-filled panel interview at the end. Undertaking this endeavor was not feasible for many people. This created an odd problem among judges, often referred to as \u201cLevel 2+\u201d. This was meant to describe a highly skilled and experienced Level 2 judge that maybe made sense to be Level 3, but was unable to complete the process for any of a long list of reasons. Many conversations happened during this era on how to solve this problem, but ultimately no solution was ever implemented, as evidenced by the fact that Judge Academy adopted the legacy Judge Program levels nearly identically when that transition happened in 2019. So for this whole era, there is a phenomenon of Level 2 not accurately describing many judges that were unable to obtain Level 3 which may have described them more accurately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p> In my understanding, Judge Foundry\u2019s levels attempted to address this issue by separating the former Level 2 into Levels 2 and 3, and moving the old Level 3 into Levels 4 and 5. This granularity is a positive move and is largely effective, as the new Level 3 is nowhere near as daunting as the old one. The \u201cexceptional L2s\u201d get a real chance to obtain a certification that more accurately describes their skills and experience. The other primary \u201cinnovation\u201d that Foundry brought over Judge Academy was the return of maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maintenance is a good thing. It ensures that judges are putting their skills into practice to keep them sharp and effective. But there\u2019s also a subtle yet key aspect to maintenance that I want to emphasize: it sets a baseline for what it means to be that level of judge. As an example of what I mean by this, let\u2019s look at the event-related maintenance requirements for Level 5<\/a>, my current level:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choose three \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n