Summer assignment is a term most students would be appalled to hear about. For some, however, the concept of summer projects helps to ensure that students are continuing to learn and develop their education over the break. Due to the conditions summer work is assigned under, it poses the question of who should be designing the assignments, teachers or students? While teachers may have a broader understanding of the subject matter that their students will need to know and work on over summer, it is the students who should be assigning summer projects as they better understand which subjects they struggle in, know their own work schedule, and are able to make projects which appeal to their own interests.

First and foremost, students have a much better understanding of topics which they struggle on than their teachers do. Since teachers do not always understand the problems a student might be facing in class, it may lead the teacher to assign work which ends up becoming meaningless to the student and a waste of time for both student and teacher. Work assigned by students, on the other hand, may be much more personalized towards problems which students face inside their classes. This personalization of summer work for students ensures that while they learn new topics, they are still able to reinforce and improve in topics which might have caused many issues in the past.

The work schedule of a student is incredibly difficult to track. As such, if teachers were giving summer assignments, they might not be able to account for the massive diversity in the work schedules of students. Student designed summer projects would be much more effective as a learning tool, as students would have better judgment of how quickly any given student could complete their work, thus enabling students over the summer to learn at their own pace. By enabling students to learn at their own pace, they would not feel as rushed as they normally would when completing work for school, which in turn would result in students completing much higher quality work and getting more out of the learning experience.

Since all students are different, most students will not have the exact same interests. Under a design made by teachers, summer projects might end up dull or uninteresting towards many students as a whole, whereas student designed projects can appeal more to the interests of most, leading to more academic success overall. Under a student designed summer project, students can feel more involved in their assignments, and as such, will be more likely to choose things which interest them. By having students design summer assignments, they can select subjects which maintain their interest in education and provide for the improvement of previous lessons.

Teachers are not omnipotent. If they were, students would be able to find much more joy in an education experience much more personalized to their interests. Instead, throughout the school year, students are forced through a multitude of tasks which may not be up to par with their expectations. This issue, however, does not need to exist during summer projects as well. Under a student designed summer project, students can find much more interest in content which they otherwise might never learn, improve on subject areas concerning to them, and provide an adaptable schedule which matches their own work schedule, thus providing a better educational summer experience for everyone.