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Mandela effect causes student to hand in assignment late

By Frankie Hart, March 15 2019 —

First-year student Maddie Menteur was shocked when she discovered that she had not finished a class assignment on the day it was due. Menteur said she had vivid memories of finishing the assignment and handing it in on D2L days prior, but upon waking up on the due date found that she had done neither of those things.

“Realizing that I hadn’t done the assignment really freaked me out,” Menteur said. “I swore that I finished it. I put a lot of hard work into it. I have this creeping feeling that something’s wrong — my whole body feels off. The whole experience really freaked my bean, you know?”

After some online research into her dilemma, Menteur found out about the Mandela effect — a phenomenon in which one’s memories differ from reality, explained by alternate realities. After additional research, Menteur found that the University of Calgary does not have an academic policy regarding the Mandela effect.

“My professor only has late policies regarding illness or emergency, which doesn’t quite cover my experience,” Menteur said. “I’m hoping to explain my situation to her and then maybe take it up with administration about drafting official policy.”

Menteur approached her professor, Dr. Madelan, about her situation and was quickly given an extension on her assignment. Dr. Madelan stated this was due to her own personal experience with the effect.

“I remember when I first found out it was ‘Berenstain’ and not ‘Berenstein,’ “ Dr. Madelan said. “That shit kept me up for weeks.”

This article is part of our humour section.


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