Although frowned upon student, summer work, more specifically summer projects are a great way to assure students continue learning during their break and to prevent any halts in their learning process. To maximize the potential gains, these summer projects should be student-designed, as doing so would enable students to be more creative, allow students to focus on what they need to improve, and it would increase student initiative and interest.

Firstly, student-designed summer projects are a great way to enable student creativity. By giving students the option to design and come up with their project (which is, of course, in relation to the class/course), it gives them an opportunity to use their creative minds which they rarely get to use due to the general school structure. In life, it's usually the most creative and unique things that are recognized and viewed highly. For example, in a school science fair, rather than the cliche volcano winning, first place would usually go to something more unique or creative. The same idea can be applied outside of school. For example, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk is most well known not just for these companies, but for the incredibly unique and more creative way he manages and runs the businesses, and the way he conducts himself as a businessmen. Through his creative personality, Elon Musk has managed to expand his businesses and appeal to the more casual audience as a fun, regular guy.

In addition to allowing creativity, student-designed projects would allow students to focus on their weaknesses, or in areas they have interest in but previously didn't have the opportunity to delve into. By allowing students to have more control over their projects, it can help students focus on their weaknesses, thus allowing for greater improvement and preparedness heading into the school year. In addition to this, such a project could allow a student to kick start or advance a certain interest, which could prove instrumental to their future. Most people somewhat figure out what they want to do in life by the time they finish school anyways, but having a flexible summer project, especially with the amount of time you would have to research and work on it, could really help with that decision. In addition to finding interests, student-designed projects can also help students identify what they aren't interested, or what their strengths are. Through extensive research and work, students can figure out their strengths and work to them, or find what doesn't interest them and make sure to stay away in order to avoid a future situation where they end up in a class or even job that doesn't enable them to try and work hard.

Finally, by allowing students to have more control and design their projects, it would increase student interest and initiative for the topic at hand. As a student, I have personally found, that while student-designed projects may take longer, they have generally allowed me to connect more with the class and find aspects about the course that interest me. These sorts of projects have also allowed me to take more initiative in my class, by making me think more critically and spend more time coming up with what to do. For example, I once had a project where we had to look at a certain global issue, but we could choose to look from whatever perspective we wanted. After hours of thinking and trying to find an interesting perspective, I came upon an article discussing the view of economists, and, obviously, the way they thought that situation would impact the economy. As one thing lead to another, I ended up thoroughly researching a multitude of different resources and I learned a lot about economics. It was from that one project where I realized how interesting economics is to me, as it just seems to make sense and can be easily applied to the world. This project has resulted in me being in an AP economics class today. There are many others that have had their interests derive from one small moment, and a student-designed project provides a great chance for students to take intiative and find an interest that could lead on to be a great part of their lives.

In summary, while teachers are the experts and know how to get students to learn, directing the project to students by making summer projects student-designed would be more beneficial to students individually. By enabling them to be creative, focus on their interests and weaknesses, and by increasing student initiative, student-designed projects are the best way to assure students get the most out of summer projects.