How BYU students can win $1,000 in Cougar Cash

The College of Family, Home and Social Sciences established the Experience Points (XP) program that encourages student participation in college events.

Posters line the walls of the Kimball Tower, identifying XP events across campus. XP events are identified by a labeled QR code in the bottom-right corner of each poster.

To many students, the meaning behind the XP letters is unknown. Kenna Murphy, a sophomore majoring in psychology, was one of those students.

I had never heard of it. Id heard it like in a video game. I thought it was the same thing, but definitely not, Murphy said.

The XP program is an incentive-based attendance program. Started after 2020 by Associate Dean Niwako Yamawaki, the idea was created in the hope of drawing greater student engagement and attendance of the colleges events.

The college hosts a wide range of events and activities throughout the semester that are vetted as XP events. By scanning a QR code at the end of each XP event, students who attend are entered into a drawing.

Rachel Dial, the event manager for the college, explained the reward system.

We have about one in every six or seven people that get a coupon. So we have a lot of winners for each XP event, Dial said.

At the end of each semester, students who attended at least two XP events and who are majoring in any of the college's departments are entered into the grand drawing.

The grand drawing has a prize of $1,000 in Cougar Cash. The prize is meant to help students, allowing them a wide range of possibilities to pay for educational necessities.

The XP events include lectures, service projects and many other types of activities. The events are hosted by the college but vary to accommodate the diverse interests of each major.

XP events are not limited to students within the college. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Jeffery Nokes, associate dean of the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, explained that the XP program is about more than attendance; it is about belonging and inclusion.

It builds community, we hope, in our college and makes people feel like they belong with us and so we really appreciate them attending and I think its a good way to get them there, Nokes said.

Details for all future XP events can be found here.