Summer break: a time of peace, relaxation, and, most importantly to many, freedom from school; much of summer break's allure comes from students no longer having to worry about the many burdens school may provide. Now add a teacher-desgined project and you have a surefire recipe for disaster, with students being at best merely annoyed by such a project and at worst completely unreceptive to any lessons they could possibly learn, making the project a waste of time for all parties. If schools are to assign projects over the summer, student-designed projects are far superior to teacher-designed projects as they garner more enthusiasm than teacher-designed projects, encourage deeper thinking and more learning than teacher-designed projects, and save time for all parties involved.

Student-designed projects can lead to much more enthusiasm for the project by the student than any teacher-desgined project. Teacher-desgined projects often feel much more like busywork to students and are much less likely to appeal to each student's individual interests due to the generalized approach teachers must use when making a teacher-designed project. Students have less agency in doing teacher-desgined projects, which immediately detaches them from the project, making them much less enthusiastic and receptive to the project. In addition, teacher-designed projects don't appeal to each student's specific interests, due to having to be standardized, causing a similar effect where they become much less enthusiastic and receptive to the project, making it a much less effective learning tool. It is for this reason that renowned educational institutions such as Princeton University have a senior project that is entirely made and chosen by the students themselves, not professors, allowing students to conduct research on what they are truly passionate about. This is not something solely practiced by Princeton; even current high school research classes practice this same approach with students doing student-designed projects as the result is a student who is more engaged in their work. With greater interest in projects, students will become even more engaged and involved with their learning.

With more enthusiasm and engaged learning being put into student-designed projects, they can also subsequently lead to deeper thinking and learning within the assigned topic. In student-designed projects, students must do more research and attain a greater understanding to actually design the project and complete the needed work; meanwhile, teacher-assigned projects do not require this, allowing for students to pass by with surface-level understanding of the topic, typically only having to follow the given directions in order to complete the project. Princeton's senior research project once again exemplifies this with students making impressive discoveries and innovations through their own designed projects. For instance, one Princeton student managed to create a van that runs on solely renewable energy sources. While of course students doing typical summer projects would not be expected to do something of that magnitude, this still exemplifies the effectiveness of student-designed projects over teacher-designed projects that would not require as much of an understanding of the topic to complete.

Not only are these student-designed projects effective, they can save time for all parties involved in the process. Teachers no longer have to spend as much time designing the perfect project for their students' summer break. Instead, they can design simple guidelines to allow for more flexibility within the project while also not having to create or approve individual student-designed projects. While students may use more time in forming the guidelines of the project itself rather than having to simply read over the project's instructions if it were teacher-designed, they can make up this time with more informed and enthusiastic research; their research would be quicker, due to having more of an idea of the direction they would like their project to go, and they would save time during the school year that may otherwise be allotted to reviewing concepts learned during the summer project as a result of less retention due to lower enthusiasm and requirement for understanding for teacher-designed projects. Student-designed projects thus save both the overall time and effort of both teachers and students must put into completing the project and learning/teaching the concepts of the project.

While teacher-designed projects may be more standardized than student-designed projects, student-designed projects trump teacher-designed summer projects in nearly every other way. Student-designed projects can lead to a greater enthusiasm for the project at hand, which in turn can lead to a greater understanding of the topic and less time spent overalll on such projects. Thus, schools should primarily use student-designed projects when assigning summer projects to students.