Summer is all about being free from the stress that school, teachers, and assignments create during the fall, winter, and spring, but there are times when classes require students to complete certain tasks that have a template that is designed by the teacher. Students need to be able to control their time and energy during break to be able to complete summer assignments successfully, so by having students design their own projects over the summer, students can learn based on their own terms and at their own pace, they can apply themselves creatively and in a workload aspect, and create a sense of independence which strengthens their applicability.

Students want to take summer at their own perspective pace; moving too fast or too slow would only create stress and cause them to focus too much on their work and/ or possibly too little on it. By giving students the ability to design their own projects, they can learn and work at their own pace and on their own terms. This gives students the ability to have summer break feel smooth, comfortable, and not as if they are completing work that goes outside their "outside of school" comfort zone. The summer mindset is very liberal and reciprocity should only flow congruently with it so that students can move along freely with their projects.

Creating an environment that goes based on an individual student's mindset allows for them to be more tenacious. By giving students the opportunity to design their own work, they feel more obligated to put as much effort that they are most comfortable with as possible. It's a method of "teaching" self-reliance, which gives the students a starting point to see how much they can really apply themselves and utilize their creativity to its maximized potential; although, teacher-designed projects tend to be most specific and direct, which directly gives students something to start with; however, this can limit usage of students' creative prowess, applicable knowledge and abilities that maximize creative output and work-management tendencies in the long run.

Self-reliance is key to the summer mindset. Students are all about being more independent, not just from parents and guardian figures, but being more independent from school as well. Removing guidance and direct expectations from the workload, this gives the students a chance to build self-reliance and strengthens reasons for them to work on their own terms and at their own pace. Students being able to design their own projects ultimately allows for them to work more independently and non-conjugally from the summer mindset.

In the end, it's all about how each individual student can manage their whole summer and incorporate their summer ideals into their school work. Self-creating the projects and creating an ideal rubric is the best way for students to work outside of the school year because they can learn and work at their own pace, truly do their work based on their own applications and efforts, and build self-reliance by subtracting guidance from their work. What the individual wants and how they think completely overpowers any teacher-designed project because tenacity and effort becomes exposed once students work based on their ideals, desires, and with their own brain.