With the semester drawing to a close, students and professors alike here at Arapahoe Community College are shifting into high gear for the final push toward summer break.

“I’m pretty sure I have, like, something big due,” ponders student Nevaeh Bluth, gazing unblinkingly at her smartphone. “Right? I know it’s something like, five pages?” says her friend and classmate. Both somehow failed to notice their increasingly harried adjunct professor reminding them twice a week for the past month and a half about the research project that the class had discussed together the very first day of the semester and one dozen times since.

Students who potentially couldn’t pick their teacher out of a police lineup after nine weeks of lectures are becoming suddenly and increasingly worried about the effect this out-of-nowhere project they like, totally knew nothing about will have on their final grade.

“I mean, what even is that?” worries student Marc Dmitri, who’s mastered the art of Snapchatting from beneath the smart desks. “Like, why spring this on us all of a sudden?” he asks. Slamming open his binder with a grunt of disgust, the pristine, untouched syllabus from Day 1 highlighting the import of this final research project in bolded and underlined print flutters onto the table.

Shoving the errant paperwork back into his backpack, Dmitri runs his fingers through his hair. “It’s like they don’t even care they’re not our only professors! We have other classes!” complains the student whose instructors have, at the end of most lectures, offered help to any student in need of assistance but have yet to see a single student show up for office hours.

“Ugh. Looks like an all-nighter,” groans another student whose 63-day lead time for the project was completely insufficient. “I’ll be mainlining RedBull til 3 am at least,” mutters another victim of every adjunct professor’s inherent sadist streak.

At press time, instructors reportedly began receiving D2L emails from scores of students who have suddenly been stricken ill. “It’s springtime, but it’s Colorado so they can string out flu and pneumonia all the way through May,” shrugs one professor whose smile stopped reaching his eyes three weeks ago.

“What can you do?”