For many years, summer projects have been given to students as a way to ensure that these students continue with learning even through such a long and extended break. Summer projects are a necessity to students as they give an outlook on what will be expected throughout the school year and what skill sets are crucial in the class. These projects, however, often vary on how exactly they are developed, leading to some debate regarding who should be in charge of designing such projects. Although some may say that teacher-designed summer projects will hinder students' creativity and individualism, summer projects should be teacher-designed due to the fact that teachers know the curriculum, students may obtain an unfair advantage, and teacher-designed summer projects help structure the school year.

Summer projects should be teacher designed due to the fact that teachers are specialized in the curriculum. Teachers often know exactly what is necessary for students to be prepared with even before they step into the classroom at the beginning of the year. This is precisely why the summer projects that are supposed to help students continue learning throughout the summer should be designed by teachers; they know what's best for their students. For example, a teacher who knows of an excellent book that all students should read before the school year starts would most likely make that a part of the summer project in order to ensure their own students' success for the school year. If students were to design their own summer projects, most would be completely unprepared for the school year due to the fact that most will not know the curriculum well enough to create an in-depth summer project focusing on it. By having teachers design these projects, students will be adequately prepared for the school year, further giving rise to their own success. After all, that is the main goal of these projects: to ensure that future generations continue great practices of learning in order to attain success throughout the new school year.

Along with teachers knowing the curriculum, teachers should be able to design summer projects due to the unfair advantage that students may receive if they were to create their own. Some students who are able to create their own projects may tend to design projects that are accustomed to be in their favor, whereas other students may seek to challenge themselves and perhaps create extremely difficult projects. For example, if the project has to do with a science experiment, one student may choose to do a simple children's experiment while another may try to complete a rather difficult university-level experiment. This unfair imbalance in the difficulty levels between projects can be seen on a grand scale with each student's project differing in difficulty level if they were to be able to design their own. This all can be easily avoided if teachers were to be able to design a set project for all students to complete over the summer. This ensures that the difficulty level remains the same for all students, and no students would have an unfair advantage over others. The point of a summer project is to continue learning over the summer- a factor that students will forget if they create their own projects. Teachers, however, have their students' best interests at heart, meaning they will create projects for their students in a way that no one will have an unfair advantage. Teachers should be able to design summer projects; it is the only way to ensure that one student does not have an advantage over the other.

Just as it is important that students do not have an unfair advantage, it is also important that teachers design summer projects due to the fact that this helps with the structure of school year activities. Teachers who are able to design their own experiments may find that it is much easier when they have to create assignments at the start of the school year to see how much the students actually learned. An example of this would be when teachers design their own summer projects, they can easily design activities, tests, quizzes, and much more that are focused on the assignment and its content. This, however, cannot be easily completed if the students are in charge of creating their own summer projects due to the wide array of projects to design and develop. Some may say that teachers can simply design activities that are more general and correlate with all students' summer activities; however, this is a nearly impossible feat with such a wide array of summer project possibilities if they were to created by students. Additionally, such general activities would serve little to no purpose in the classroom as they would be of no use for the betterment of the students' knowledge. The more specific and targeted the activities are, the better students learn. It is crucial that teachers design and create their own summer projects so that they can easily structure specific activities to assess students on the project material.

Summer projects must be created and designed by the correct party. Teachers who design these projects will be able to set up for a successful year not only for them, but for their students as well. If the projects were to be designed by students, the negative consequences would be felt throughout the school year. Students would be completely and utterly clueless; they would not know what to expect for the school year, and their summer projects would most likely never even correlate with the curriculum. This can be compared to buying ingredients that one thought was necessary for a recipe, but ultimately never using these ingredients after realizing they were completely useless after all. It is imperative to realize that these summer projects cannot simply be wasted "ingredients". They must be correctly designed and created by teachers, otherwise students will unfortunately be geared towards a "recipe" for disaster.