Summer break is the biggest part of the year that students look forward to. Students want to have fun with friends and just relax, however, students are still required to continue learning throughout their break in order to retain information they've learned over the school year. Consequently, students are assigned teacher-designed summer projects. Some people may say that teacher-designed summer projects are effective, however, student-designed projects are better because it would be more enjoyable for the students and it will have more diverse topics.

First of all, having students design their own projects would be a lot more enjoyable for students because they have the freedom to choose their own topics. For example, the famous filmmaker and entrepreneur Walt Disney was not always successful with his work. At the start of his career he drew little art work pieces for a small local newspaper company, although he wasn't able to profit from his drawings that much, he still loved his job because it was something he wanted and loved to do. It can be seen that people are able to go through tough times if they are able to express themselves freely. Another example would be is when my science class was assigned a group project and students had the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do. My group decided to do it on climate change, which wasn't very appealing to me at the time, but as I learned and dug in deeper into the topic, I found it more and more interesting which led to me being more educated in climate change and gaining new knowledge made it was more memorable. This shows that when students have the freedom to choose and design their own projects; it helps students learn something they never knew about, which leads to students being more educated.

Secondly, letting students design their projects will lead to more diverse topics. Students are always taught to follow a rubric which can be stressful; consequently, students are limited when it comes to expressing their thoughts and opinions. In fact, during my English class, students were split into groups and we were all assigned the same topic to debate about and we were also assigned which side to take on the topic. This lead to students being confused and frustrated because they didn't know what to talk about because they didn't agree with what they were assigned, which lead to the debate being very confusing and vague; students from all groups were stating the same basic reasonings with no interesting details. It can be seen that it's hard to describe or discuss about certain topics when there's no diversity of thoughts. On the other hand, during my history class, the whole class held a debate on a topic where students were given the choice to pick which side they wanted to take. As a result, students from both sides were able to share their thoughts and opinions on the topics, which led to students from both sides giving diverse, different, and interesting ideas and students were able to learn from each other. Every person is different and everyone has different thoughts that people can learn from one another.

Some say that teacher-designed projects are better because teachers are more experienced and know what's better for the students, however, that reasoning is flawed due to the fact that every student is different and some students need more freedom in education. For example, studies have shown that when students are given work that's confusing or not enjoyable; they procrastinate until the due date and the scores and grades are often lower. However, when students are given the opportunity to choose their own topics and work on what they want to do, they take more responsibility and complete the task on time with a higher score. Teachers being more experienced than students may be true, but giving students a chance and letting them work on their own may show better results. Often times, students are too focused on grades and rubrics, which can be stressful and upsetting when they receive a bad grade for their work they thought was good, however, when students follow their own rules and knowledge it'll be more rewarding when they receive a good grade and it'll be easier for students to find what they lack and need to work on, to improve when they receive a bad grade.

In conclusion, students should have the freedom to choose and design their own summer projects because it'll give the students a chance freely express themselves. Students today have a lot of information thrown at them during the school year and having to retain all that information throughout summer is very difficult, but having students forcefully research and learn about a topic they don't like would be very discouraging and not very effective. Learning is an important part of life, but students should still have the freedom to research and work on something they want to do.