How to Deal With a Professor Who Gives Unreasonably Difficult Assignments

Q: What if the whole class is failing because assignments are too hard?

This is a signal worth bringing to the professor's attention through a class representative or directly, framed as feedback about course calibration rather than as a complaint. Most professors respond to evidence that their class-wide performance is significantly lower than intended by providing additional guidance, adjusting the grading rubric, or offering additional support resources.

Q: Can I appeal a grade on an assignment I thought was unfairly set?

Grade appeals are typically for grades that do not accurately reflect the quality of your work relative to the stated criteria — not for cases where you believe the assignment was too difficult. If you believe your work was graded inaccurately relative to the rubric, a grade appeal may be appropriate. If the issue is the difficulty of the assignment itself, raising it through a different channel — direct feedback to the professor or the department — is more appropriate.

Q: Should I drop a course if the assignments are consistently too hard?

If the course is not required for your program and the level of difficulty is genuinely creating academic harm disproportionate to the credit value, dropping may be the right decision. If the course is required, working with available resources and your academic advisor to navigate it despite the difficulty is necessary. Check your institution's drop deadline before making this decision.

Q: Is it okay to tell a professor their assignments are too hard?

Yes — framed as a question seeking guidance rather than as a complaint. 'I am finding this assignment very challenging and I want to make sure I am understanding what is expected correctly — could you help me clarify the requirements?' is a legitimate and professional way to open this conversation. Approaching it as a feedback complaint rather than a genuine question seeking help is less likely to produce a useful response.

Q: What if my classmates find the assignments easy but I do not?

This suggests a gap in your specific preparation or approach rather than an objective difficulty issue. Visit the professor's office hours to understand where specifically your approach is falling short, connect with classmates who are doing well to understand how they are approaching the work, and consider additional academic support like tutoring if there is a genuine knowledge gap underlying the difficulty.

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Before concluding the assignments are unreasonably difficult, it is worth checking two things.

Calibrate Your Perception First

Before concluding that a professor’s assignments are objectively unreasonably difficult, it is worth honestly assessing two things. First, whether your perception is shared by most of the class — a professor whose entire class is struggling with the assignment difficulty is in a different situation from one where most students are managing while you specifically are finding it very hard. Ask classmates directly. If the struggle is widespread, the difficulty is objective; if it is primarily individual, the issue may be a gap in your specific preparation or approach.

Second, whether the difficulty is genuinely unreasonable or simply at the high end of reasonable. University-level academic work is supposed to challenge students beyond their comfort zone — this is the mechanism of learning. An assignment that requires more than you can do without effort is the intended experience of difficult coursework; it is not the same as an assignment that is poorly designed, unclear, or impossible.

Seek Clarification Proactively

Many assignments that seem unreasonably difficult are assignments whose requirements are unclear rather than genuinely excessive. Attend office hours and ask specific questions about what success looks like for the assignment, what criteria the professor uses to evaluate work, and whether there are examples of strong responses they can share. Most professors who set demanding assignments are happy to discuss what they are looking for with students who take the initiative to ask.

Office hours questions about assignment requirements are not a sign of weakness — they are a sign of engagement. Professors routinely give more helpful guidance in office hours than in the assignment description itself, partly because the questions students ask reveal what needs clarification.

Use All Available Resources

Writing centers, tutoring centers, peer study groups, online resources, and course-related textbooks and supplementary readings are all resources for tackling difficult assignments that many students do not fully use. Before concluding that an assignment is beyond what is reasonable, ensure that you have genuinely used the available support structures rather than attempting it entirely alone.

Peer collaboration — working through the intellectual content of an assignment with classmates without producing shared written work — is particularly valuable for assignments that are conceptually challenging. Understanding through discussion, then producing your own independent response, is an approach that makes many difficult assignments manageable.

Raise It as a Class

If the entire class is struggling with the difficulty of assignments and this seems to be a consistent pattern rather than an isolated instance, raising it as a class-level concern — through a course representative, through a class discussion period if the professor allows it, or through student course evaluation mechanisms — is legitimate and appropriate. This is different from an individual complaint about a difficult assignment; it is collective feedback about course calibration.

The most productive framing of this feedback is about clarification and support rather than about reducing difficulty: ‘Many of us are finding the assignment expectations unclear — could more scaffolding be provided?’ is more likely to produce a constructive response than ‘the assignments are too hard.’

When to Involve Others

Involve a department head or academic advisor when: the assignment expectations are genuinely outside what is reasonable for the course level (a 10,000-word research paper in an introductory course, for example), the professor has refused to provide clarification or support, or the difficulty of the assignments is producing a grade outcome that does not appear to reflect genuine learning or ability. Academic advisors can provide perspective on whether a course’s expectations are within normal range and can sometimes facilitate conversations with departments about course calibration.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if the whole class is failing because assignments are too hard?▼

Can I appeal a grade on an assignment I thought was unfairly set?▼

Should I drop a course if the assignments are consistently too hard?▼

Is it okay to tell a professor their assignments are too hard?▼

What if my classmates find the assignments easy but I do not?▼

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Written by Theophilus Mburu

Theophilus Mburu is a dedicated dentist and a contributing writer at Edunotes, bringing a unique blend of scientific insight and creativity to the blog. Beyond the clinic, he enjoys immersing himself in video games and exploring music, adding a fresh and relatable perspective to his content.