Summer is on its way and students are anticipating the freedom and break from school. Even though vacation is time away from school, most students in Annandale have grueling summer assignments. For example, Honors English and History teachers assign projects each year to their upcoming class for the summer.

“The summer assignment I give should take no longer than 4-6 hours; it’s reading four chapters”said history teacher Jonathan York. “Most assignments will take more effect and time to do, but should be worked on each day to minimize the load. This seems to be the problem for many students.” York said.

“I started my English assignment a week before school,” said freshman, Sara Girmay. Students get rude awakenings from the fun in the sun when they start their assignments late. This leads to anxiety rates to increase and ruined summers.

Some summer assignments never change and are well known. The notorious summer assignment of articles for pre-IB World History 2 and Geography 2 Honors often come as an overwhelming shock for freshmen. Sophomores spent their summer annotating A Gathering of Old Men.

Summer assignments can sometimes make students feel anxious for the upcoming year. These projects are usually the first thing in a teacher’s grading book, so it is important to do well on the assignment. Since it is a huge part of the first quarter grade, this makes students nervous about their grades and the turnout of the year. Summer assignments can be a great indicator about the workload for the specific class though.

A controversial topic at AHS is whether or not summer assignments are truly necessary. Most teachers feel that they are helpful to students and are worth the time and energy used to complete them. Summer assignments are actually not just intended to torture students, but to help them review what they learned in the previous year.

“[Summer assignments] are helpful to my students because the curriculum will be on the SOLs,” York said. “I’m trying to prepare them.”

Not all students hate the assignments and some even realize how important they are.

“Summer assignments prepare us for the real world because there will never be a time where there isn’t something to do.”sophomore Sam Modica said.

“[Summer assignments] prepare me and the class seems easier than the assignment,” freshman Sara Girmay said.

No matter how boring and hard summer assignments look, students still need to complete them because in the long run they are only beneficial.