A student's education is an ongoing process that is easily disrupted by long periods of intellectual idleness. So summer break, while revered by the student majority, ultimately has a detrimental effect on students' learning. To combat this, summer projects are commonly assigned to help students maintain their academic acuity and prepare them for the demands of their upcoming courses. Teachers know exactly which challenges their curriculums entail, so naturally, they're the safest option when it comes to designing these assignments. Their careers are centered around their ability to transmit knowledge to their students, making teachers the ideal (and obvious) candidates for summer project designing.

Summer work is seen by most students as the bane of their summer festivities, a teacher-spawned force that seeks to spoil all that their very necessary summer break stands for. This attitude, as with many opinions championed by the youth, is immature and not representative of the bigger picture. Teachers find the use of summer assignments an essential part of their scholarly arsenal because, by many accounts, summer break is simply too long. While the implementation of the year-round school year is a distant leap for American public education, summer assignments can provide relief for our current situation. Through summer work, a teacher of AP Calculus is able to ensure that their future students don't shed their mathematical foundations that other teachers worked so hard to build. Once classes reach a certain vigor, summer assignments simply must be used, similar to how architects insist on steel reinforcement once their designs are sufficiently structurally demanding.

Whereas teacher-designed summer projects are the reasonable norm, student-designed projects have been suggested as an alternative. This idea appeals to the short-term desires of most students; student-designed assignments will almost inevitably be less rigorous and lengthy than those manufactured by their teaching counterparts. Plus, having fellow students constructing summer work adds a less quantifiable layer of relatability. Yet, these benefits are proven to be only superficial upon closer inspection. Summer work made by students forces teachers to deal with the possibility that their new students will be utterly unprepared for their teaching. When the objective of summer assignments is to prepare students for their more rigorous and tedious classes, it's subtractive to think that lessening their work's intensity is fitting.

The one substantial benefit in student-designed summer assignments goes to the student designers, not to their student recipients. The designers receive their own assignment that requires them to think from the perspective of a teacher, a perspective that undeniably confirms students' understanding to a great degree. While a seemingly great concept for classwork, this benefit doesn't transfer well to those assigned the finished product over the summer. Students preparing for a course are subject to the volatility that comes with student design, and these assignments very well might not fit the planned curriculum.

Having students design summer work is quite comparable to having students teach a class itself. A teacher's purpose is to contribute the the shaping of a student's knowledge base, enabling them to be a productive member of society. Delegating this important job to other students, even if only periodically, is an ineffective and unprofessional way to get the job done. The designing of summer assignments, for the sake of students, should be reserved for those who get paid for doing so.