Throughout the years, teachers will hear students complain about the boring and difficult assignments given over the summer break. Students complain that these assignments are too difficult to ease into their summer plans or they are just difficult to solve and complete. However, schools still assign these projects over the summer to assure that their students are maintaining an education over their break. There have been discussion about whether these summer projects should be teacher-designed or student-designed. These projects should be student-designed as it allows them to explore their creativity, expand their thinking, as well as preparing them for future situations.

Teacher-designed projects are detrimental to the students' creativity. Students will have the opportunity to use their imaginations to create these assignments.

Every student has his or her own method of learning. For instance, Generic_Name, a student enrolled in a French course, was assigned to study the French language and culture over the summer. Generic_Name is able to creatively develop ideas of how she could learn the language. She has the idea of traveling to Generic_City over the summer and blog about her experience in the french-speaking country. Whereas her friend, Generic_Name, would rather spend her summer indoors and enjoy her favorite movie while reading the french subtitles. The two students have creatively thought of different ideas to learn the language, yet both students will benefit from the projects as they are exercising their french skills during the summer. Therefore, student-designed projects will allow students to absorb information as well as expressing their knowledge without being limited to a certain outline.

Many teachers will argue that assigning a teacher-based project will assure that the students are learning what is required. However, allowing teachers to take charge on these assignments will prevent the students from exploring new ideas and varying their knowledge. In school, students are taught to think outside the box. An example of this is when a student is instructed to study rocks over the summer for their Geosystems course. The student will not be limited to what to research about the rock or what type of rock are going to study. Therefore, they could discover new facts that they have not learned in the past or they could be learning new materials that would benefit them throughout the course. The students will have their own perspective of absorbing new materials. If they are allowed to explore on their own and design a project, they will be more open-minded and will not be limited to learning within a strict guideline. Allowing students to design their summer projects will assure them to comprehend the material in different perspectives.

There are moments in our lives that requires us to create portfolios or create projects throughout our careers. Student-designed projects will give the students the opportunity to practice building their knowledge from scratch and yoke them together. For example, a student named Generic_Name was assigned to design a project of his understanding of the novel called

Pride and Prejudice over the summer of his senior year. Generic_Name decides to develop a portfolio to yoke his understanding of Bronte's use of tones, intent, language, and organization to develop her writing. Years later, Generic_Name graduates from university and he is committed to becoming an author. He has the advantage of developing skills of collecting information on his own to better his writing, prior to his university years. In the future, the students will appreciate their teachers for allowing them to create student-designed projects as it provided them experience beforehand. Allowing students to practice and create projects on their own will assure that they will be learning over the summer and that they will have the opportunity to practice these skills for future purposes.

All in all, these are the reasons why student-designed projects are beneficial. Abolishing teacher-designed projects and replacing them with student-designed projects will benefit children and adolescents. The idea will improve the student mentally and emotionally as it allows students to exercise their brains throughout the summer, while still enjoying their vacation.