text: many students don't like doing a lot of work, especially when they are on break. This means that, if left to design a project by themselves, some students will take shortcuts in order to do as little work as possible. They might plagiarize other people's work, skip important steps in the planning process, etc. I have witnessed this myself when someone in one of my classes last year had to design their own project. They were notoriously lazy, but the student had to do the project to pass the class. In order to get around doing the work, the student payed someone else to do the project for them. They were busted when the teacher asked about the project during the presentation and the student could not answer the questions. Sadly, this mentality is rampant in schools, so letting students design their own project without supervision will completely negate the purpose of the projects for many of the students.