Crimson Global Academy recently launched a new initiative – the CGA Badges. Like me, I am sure many students are wondering ‘What are all those interesting names? How can I get them? What are the credit milestones?’ Worry not, students, because I have interviewed our Senior Product Manager, Sarah Yock, and gathered all of the answers, tips and tricks right here in this article. 

What are CGA Badges? 

CGA Badges are virtual badges which you can earn by completing certain tasks. Badges are divided into 4 categories: Academic (Gold), Social (Blue), Extracurricular (Orange), and Orientation (Green). The badges earn you credit points that you can accumulate over time and once you reach 500 points there will be a special reward delivered right to your doorstep. 

What inspired CGA to develop these badges and where do their interesting names come from?

Browsing through each page of the various badges you can earn, I am sure that you have seen certain badges named after someone famous, like Steve Harvey and Michael Jordan, and wondered ‘why them?’ Well, it turns out that the concept for CGA Badges was first proposed in 2022 and has its roots in online games. Many such games use achievements and rewards to help encourage players to keep going  –  just as CGA wishes to encourage you to keep earning badges! Badges that are named after role models like Michael Jordan and Yara Shahidi, a young feminist advocate in STEM and the founder of ‘We Vote Next’ which encourages young people to vote, are aimed at inspiring students to pursue their own goals. 

Did someone say Special Rewards?

As this article previously outlined, once you reach a certain milestone with your badge credits (shown on your CGA Home page), CGA will  post a prize to you! And with each milestone you achieve, the rewards’ values will increase. 

What do CGA Badges hope to achieve through me, you, and all CGA students?

Just as badges are traditionally used to recognize students’ dedication and hard work, CGA hopes that these new Badges will help students to work towards their goals and strive for academic achievements. CGA hopes that with the launch of these Badges, students will collaborate with each other on Slack and contribute to the school culture. As Ms Yock remarked, “Since implementing badges, we have observed increased communication and collaboration among our students on Slack. It is our hope that this positive trend will continue to contribute to our school culture. As we look to the future, we are enthusiastic about introducing additional features to the badge system.” 

Steve Harvey: #joke_of_the_week 

One of Ms Yock’s highlights of the CGA Badges has been the “joke of the week” channel on Slack. Each week, students compete with each other to see who can come up with the funniest jokes. I encourage all of you to also check out this channel as I quite enjoyed it myself!

Do you still have any questions/inquiries about this article? 

Please do not hesitate to contact me via email me at:  yan.so@student.cga.school