Learning is a skill that takes practice and experience to become better at. Allowing students to control their learning could encourage them to want to work harder and make their work better. Students do not often have creative capacity in the school system and are often fed information and asked to repeat it during an exam. Connecting this information with real world projects and concepts will benefit students beyond their years in the school system. Summer projects should be student designed because it allows for intrinsic learning as well as independent thinking which results in internal motivation to complete and excel in summer projects.

Allowing students to design their own summer projects allows children to be proactive in their learning because they are doing a project they feel passionate about. When children design their own work they feel pride in the outcome which would cause the child to spend more time and effort completing the assignment. Children are very passionate and when they have teacher assigning homework all year that they are required to complete, a self designed summer project would give them a sense of freedom and independence they have not experienced. This intrinsic learning is based on their internal desire to the project they designed; if they created it, they are more likely to complete it. They are given a choice, which is not a common thing in the school system. Giving these children a choice makes them feel like they are doing something different and more important which will result in a better product at the end of the summer.

Independent thinking is a skill development when giving a student creative freedom during a summer project. In long term schooling young adults need the skill of coming up with their own Science Research Projects which requires this independent thinking. Starting this from and early age gives the child the skills they need to succeed in higher level schooling. Allowing children to start their schooling with experience doing independent, self designed projects gives them a head start in this area. Independent thinking is required in professional work after schooling, so building this skill is vital. Small projects over the summer give students a chance to exercise this way of thinking but also experience the process of designing and completing a project without teacher intervention.

When teachers design student work they are looking for specific answers to mark correct or incorrect. Teachers give a format and outline to students and expects that all the students come back from summer with the same answers. This takes away the creativity in schooling and limits the thinking required to problem solve. Teacher designed projects have an outcome that should be the same among every student, so each student is finding a solution to a problem. If the student creates the problem and has to come up with their own solution to the problem they are able to develop the skill of not only solving problems but finding them as well. The skill of finding a problem and making a solution is an important skill in professional work and is an advantage over other children. Teachers giving the creative responsibility to the students gives a child a sense of pride and desire to impress the teacher and show them what they are capable of doing.

Intrinsic learning as well as independent thinking are examples of why summer projects should be student based and result in internal motivation to excel and complete summer projects. Society should emphasize the importance of having passion and an internal drive to excel in everything they do. Student designed summer projects allow the students to practice having the internal motivation to do well on their summer assignment and feel passionate about the project they designed. It gives the child a chance to specialize in an area they feel passionate about which will result in more complete, well focused work; but more importantly a learning experience that can not be simulated by a teacher.