Summer vacation is what every student looks forward to throughout the school year. Many students plan to go on trips with their family or friends for months at a time, but are limited to the three month vacation. The last thing a student wants to worry about over break is getting school-work done.

But in order to make sure that students don't forget whatever they learned during the nine months that school was in session, teachers assign a summer assignment or project.

Although student-designed projects would be liked more by the student, teacher-designed projects are meant to follow the criteria of the course and make sure that the assignment is reasonable, while student-designed may only cover one-fifth of their learning. But a student-designed summer project lets the teacher see what kind of student are taking their class, their level of creativity, and what the teacher needs to cover.

It's the teachers' job to teach students so that they can be successful in whatever they chose to study in college or universities. It's their job to ensure that the student has learned the standard learning criteria and maybe even more. Teacher-designed assignments are made to make sure that the students have some idea of what the course will be like, so that on the first day of class, students can engage themselves in the discussion. For example, if a student decides to take a new course that they have never taken before, they must have some background knowledge when coming to class on the first day. A summer assignment will help them figure out what they should already know coming into the first day. Students are not aware about all they information they need to know, and if they design the project themselves, they could miss majority of the information, so it's important that the teacher designs the project, even if it's a lot of work, it will be beneficial for the student in the long run.

The main thing teachers are trying to do is help guide students on their path of success, but only if the student complies. The point of a project is to let students explore a topic that the teacher can teach themselves, but a hands on experience can better the students' learning. If students in the class decide to create their own different projects, they won't all be retaining all of the information that is required to get out of doing the project and some projects might not be relevant to the topic. For example, if a chemistry teacher decides to create a project for students to learn about Intermolecular Forces and wants the students to learn about Dipole-Dipole, Hydrogen Bonding, London Dispersion Forces, and gives the students no rubric so they chose how the project will be done, some students will find all three forces and learn a lot, while others may only find one or two, and worst comes to worst, students didn't even follow the directions and created their own project separate from the information given. This is important because the teacher will end up having to teach the students what they missed in the project which will take out of class time to learn other things.

As much as students dislike the thought of school during summer vacation, they can't let all of the hard work and studying they did throughout the school year go to waste because they "don't feel like" doing any work. But that's where summer assignments come into play. Summer assignments are designed to help the student stay familiar with what they learned. Teacher-designed projects are good because it makes sure that the student learns everything correctly, however a student-designed project allows for the teacher to get familiar with the students work habits, and so the teacher knows what they need to go over within the first weeks of school. For example, if a student is signed up for a computer science class, for the summer assignment, the student gets to chose what they want to do, as long as it is coding related. There will be various projects, some will be fully developed programs, which will show the teacher that the student has coded before, and some will be a short code that can calculate a user's input. This is important because it's gives students a chance to be creative and to show the teacher that they are ready for the class in the fall. Also it can be fun for the students to create something which will make them want to complete it.

Teachers have gone through school just like their students to be able to help even more people become successful. Teachers only want the best for their students, so when they assign something it will always be beneficial to the learning process. Even if the assignment is very hard and long, teachers are there to provide help when needed. Teacher-designed projects may benefit more than student-designed projects because it follows a strict rubric on what should be the outcome of the learning experience. While student-designed projects become something that is disorganized and uses up more class time than it should. But students may appreciate the projects teachers assign if they got to have a say in what the rubric is. If the teacher and students come to an agreement, it can increase the students participation and make the project learning time more enjoyable. Ultimately, teacher-designed projects benefit the time spent and the amount of information received, with the help of student input, the participation from students will have a greater impact on the learning of the students.