In my own opinion, as a high school junior at Generic_School; to further your education during the summer, schools should allow student-lead projects to take place. The pros of allowing students to design their own tailored made educational projects out weigh the cons. When you are able to design your own educational project you put more heart into it, then if it was teacher-designed. That extra passion allows for students: to explore different interests, connect with colleges, explore research foundations, and to participate in community service.

Nudged deep in every student thoughts, especially teenagers, is the fact that college is right around the corner. Allowing students to use creativity to there advantage, instead of being left in a box doing a research paper. Gives them a positive opportunity to explore different careers and the majors attached to them. Lets say for a thought exercise, that a high school junior named Generic_Name is going to college, but sadly doesn't know what he's interested in. A student led project, gives him the perfect opportunity to pursue different career fields, to find out what excites him. By the time he graduates from high school, Generic_Name already has a generalized idea of what he wants to major in.

Asking questions is essential in helping to find the right college or university. Creating a student-project for the summer, allows students to connect with both research foundations and professors at different colleges; enabling students to network earlier not later. To better explain my thinking behind this, think for a minute that your Generic_Name, and your doing a project on DNA. By contacting college level professors and other professionals in that field, you not only helped yourself by getting an A on your report, but by networking; when your ready to apply to college and the professors already know you, your chances for getting in just doubled. As a bonus when Generic_Name is looking to get a job or internship; by already knowing professionals in the field, he's more than likely to get his desired position.

With passion comes community service, it's a saying I like to say, time to time. It works like an equation: passion plus creative project, equals community service. The more excitement that you have for a project, especially if you thought of it yourself, puts students in an unique position to voluntary get downed into the trenches of learning. When your learning, you often make the community better than how you left it in the summer. For an example, I recently met a young college grad named Generic_Name; he told me that in high school, his history teacher told him that a team of archaeologists needed volunteers to map an old Civil War battlefield. Sadly though he couldn't, because his English teacher over the summer made him write a mandatory research essay on Jane Austen.

All in all, students should be in charge of there own educational projects during the summer. It's like the old saying, you attract more with honey then with vinegar. Connecting it to a real world application, allowing someone to think rather then to be given; encourages someone to use passion, educate themselves, and put there heart into it, rather then sigh. Plus it's the summer, who wants to read a boring book from the eighteen hundreds!