text: A student-designed summer project would be exciting for students, because the agency over their education would allow them to create highly specified and perfect learning courses for themselves. Going through a program that teaches them in a way that they both understand and enjoy would be exciting and possibly life changing. The modern school system is the most monstrous source of stress on the childhood and adolescent mind. Even though learning should be acknowledged as a privilege, wonder, and necessity, it becomes a burden to students. Between the forced socialization of the classroom environment, administrations that care more for policy than the experience of the individual, a constantly building workload, and a set of rules and grades that are constantly judging and disciplining behavior, schooling becomes nightmarish for students. The poor environment weighs so heavily on the minds of children that they often develop mental illnesses or complexes, and, in extreme cases, are driven to suicide over poor grades (which, in the grand scheme of life, should be menial). Student-designed summer projects would be a way to show students that learning can be a growing and nurturing experience, instead of a murderous one. That change in outlook in the mind of a student could make all the difference in that student's optimism, well being, and quality of life for the rest of their schooling career.