As soon as the school year ends, the first thing that comes to every student's mind is the relaxation of summer. Summer is filled with fun events like going to the beach, hanging out with friends, and sitting by the campfire. What does not come to a student's mind is the project they were assigned over summer break. However much they may hate it, a project is a smart idea to ensure their intellectual learning continues over the extended break. With the natural dislike of summer projects, a way to make sure that students complete this project is to allow the students to design it. A student-designed project would be better than a teacher-designed project because students know how much they can handle, and it would allow the students to further their own interests and work on it on their own time.

Allowing a student-designed project would be more beneficial for students because they know how much they can handle. One thing that students struggle with over the school year is constant stress and the workload of classes. Coupled with extracurriculars, eating, and sleeping, there is not an abundant amount of time left for the students. As such, students have to be extra organized in order to make time for every activity. Because they are able to do this, letting students design their own project would assure that the students do not have an overbearing workload all summer long. A teachers schedule is much different than their students; so if a teacher designed their project, they would not be able to accurately plan according to how much each student could bear. Summer break is also supposed to act as a break from school, thus students should not be put over the same stress during summer break as they are during the school year. The only way to ensure this is to let the students design their projects.

Student-designed projects would entice students to further their own interests. If teachers designed the project, they might focus it on a certain subject or topic, but this topic might not always interest each student. Therefore, a student-designed project could be taken in any which way. Sophomores in high school are already starting to stress about where they want to go to college and what they intend to do for work after college. There is no better way to help ease this stress than to let the students design the project. Students could first focus the project on a subject or area of intellectual learning that they prefer and then take it from there. If a student aspires to be a lawyer when they grow up, then maybe they should design their project around the most influential lawyers in history. If a student hopes to be a marine biologist, then maybe they can design their project so as to analyze marine life on a local scale. Some may argue that this would enable students to pick topics not related to anything in school, but any subject can enhance the knowledge of a student. Even if the student is interested in video games, they could still complete a project on the mental effects of violent video games. Allowing students to give the project their own twist will make the project more favorable among students, and will encourage them to complete and put effort into the project.

Finally, summer projects should be student-designed because it will allow students to work on their own time. Summer vacation is always the perfect time to travel to other countries or just new places within the United States. Although, some of these places often do not have internet, or are hard to complete work in. If the summer projects are teacher-designed, then the project deadlines might interfere with travel, or aspects of the project may be impossible to complete while traveling. If students designed the project, then that would allow them to plan around vacations and also focus topics to where they are traveling. If a student is traveling to Spain and has an interest in Spanish history and horses, then they could complete a project on the influences of the Spanish Riding School of Sienna. This aspect of the project also helps to reduce the stress of students, because they would not have the constant worry of meeting project deadlines or requirements. The opposite side would argue that this would enable students to procrastinate on work, and not put in enough effort into the project. But, allowing students to design their own project would instead peak their interests, so they would feel encouraged to put effort into the project.

Summer projects can often be a pain, but allowing a student-designed project would take away this pain and maintain the values of fun and relaxation all summer long. Student-designed projects would be more beneficial than teacher-designed projects because students know how much they can handle, which would allow them to increase their knowledge on a topic they are interested in, and to adjust to their personal schedule. With the rapidly changing society today, the school system must change accordingly. The archaic, strict project guidelines of the past must be amended to further childrens' academic success in the real world.