Mary Griffith, 18, was completely at a loss after being asked to provide a single interesting fact about herself last week.

The first week of semester saw the return to the phenomenon known as “Week One Amnesia”, which research has shown causes a large amount of students to forget all the interesting information about themselves that at any other time of year they would freely share with others.

It is not yet known whether this state of temporary amnesia is brought on by the mundanity of hearing and recording all of the dates when class assignments are due, or if it is because students are overwhelmed by the number of people they are meeting that they could potentially be expected to be friends with, or if it the fact that students are being plunged into new environments where there are no familiar context cues telling them it’s ok to talk about themselves.

The only subject where research shows people retain information about themselves seems to be philosophy, where men in particular are more than happy to share that their opinion on a particular theory is affected by their lived experience.

 
Headline by Ailsa Traves.
Article by Alex McFadden.