Eyeing the clock with big grins on their faces, students sit on the edge of their seat, ready to ditch the books for summer break's embrace. That is until the teacher breaks the excited energy for everyone in a monotone voice, stating that a summer project will be assigned. Summer projects have always been a point of annoyance common among the students, but some teachers have since considered the idea of allowing students to design their own projects, similar in fashion to a science fair. The main concern that comes along with the idea of student-designed projects is if students will be able to create projects that live up to the expectations and criteria set by a teacher; however, student-designed projects are good outlets for creativity, teach students to be independent and self-directed, and allow for students to seek out new information on their own, which they otherwise would not have done.

Usually, students have the expectation of creating and completing their projects to the instructions of a teacher, but this practice has only put a damper on student's creativity. Student-designed projects allow students to demonstrate their creative and even analytical sides as evident by the science fair. The science fair is a widespread form of a student-designed project in which students are to create projects based on inquiries and questions they have about the world. In these projects, students are only given a loose guide to tell them what they have to do; the students decide what the general content of the project will be about, and it is here where students must get creative in order to figure out not just an inquiry for a project, but the answer to said inquiry. Resulting from the science fair are a multitude of projects and students who have demonstrated excellent thinking and significant creative output in their pursuit of scientific inquiry. Because of this, it is easy to see how student-designed projects take creativity into account and allow for students to truly shine when they're able to create their own inquiries to solve.

In addition to the opportunity for increased creative output, student-designed projects are self directed, and as a result, they teach students to use their own thinking as well as teach them to be more independent. Teachers can offer assistance to students, but ultimately, it is the responsibiity of the student to complete the bulk of the project on their own (given that it is a student-designed project); consequently, students use their own analytical thinking and become more independent as they work on their self directed projects. Independecy is a key quality to have in American society, as many occupations such as entrepeneurship and teaching involve an individual making conscious decisions to do certain things. In the case of entrepeneurship, the individual makes decisions on how and where to invest their money. As for teaching, teachers make decisions to teach material a certain way that may be different from another teacher. From both scenarios, it is evident that independency is an important trait to have because several occupations are mostly self directed.

Finally, student-directed projects allow for students to explore new topics and learn new information that they otherwise would not have done on their own. Students typically will not do extra work or go above what is expected in a carefully laid out rubric for an assignment, as their is no reason to do so if there is no reward for it. Even if there was a reward for extra work, some students still won't pursue the extra credit because they simply aren't invested enough into their work. A great way to circumvent this issue would be to incorporate a self directed aspect to a project so that students are actually researching and learning new information about topics that they are truly interested in. It is sometimes forgotten that the point of an assigment is to learn new facts, ideas, and concepts about the world, and when a teacher-designed project is assigned, the idea of learning for the sake of actually learning is thrown out of the window, as students would be more concerned with their grade. In comparison, student-designed projects allow students to do as they please, and gives way for the opportunity for students to get really invested into their work when they are able to decide what the project is about.

Student-designed projects have many advanatges over teacher-designed projects, and as a result, student-designed projects are superior to teacher-designed ones overall. Student-designed projects allow for student's to demonstrate their creativity, teach them to be more independent, and allow for students to truly become invested into their work. It is important that students get the most out of ther education, and by implementing student-designed projects into summer break, it keeps students' minds active and helps refresh them on old information as well as new information based on the topic they chose themselves. It's for these reasons that student-designed projects are superior in many ways to teacher-designed projects, and is also precisely why student-designed and self directed aspects should be the basis of all summer project assignments.