#UMassDBelieves | Class of 2029 Provost Writing Contest Winners

Sophia Lemanski | 2025, UMassD Believes 1ST PLACE WINNER

If Words Are Meant to Connect, Why Write in Silence?

For a long time, I believed that if you were a “good writer,” you shouldn’t need help. Ever since I was little, people told me I was a good writer. Teachers would compliment my writing journals and family members would smile and say, “You’ve got a talent.” I started to think writingwassupposedtocomenaturally,likesomemagicalabilityyou’reeitherbornwith,ornot. So, when I got stuck or didn’t know how to make a piece better, I told myself it was my problem to fix. If I had to ask for help, that meant I wasn’t really a “good writer,” after all. That belief stayed with me until I hit a wall.

It was an essay in my middle school English class, the kind where you’re supposed to “analyze the deeper meaning” of a novel. I remember sitting at my desk with a blank document open, typing and deleting the same sentence. No matter what I wrote, it felt wrong. The words didn’t flow. My ideas felt flat. Instead of asking for feedback, I kept thinking, “If I were actually good at this, I wouldn’t be struggling.”

WhenIfinallyturnedintheessay,Iknewitwasn’tmybest.Afewdayslater,myteacher handed it back with a note: “You have strong ideas, but you’re writing this like you’re alone.Come see me.” I didn’t understand what she meant. I was alone. That’s how I thought writing wassupposedtowork.Reluctantly,Istayedafterclass.Iexpectedacritiquesession.Instead,she sat next to me and said, “You don’t have to figure out every sentence by yourself. Writing is a conversation.”Thatwasthefirsttimeanyonehadevertoldmethatwritingisn’tasolitarybattle. She showed me how bouncing ideas off someone else, asking questions, and even reading my draft out loud could spark new thoughts.

That afternoon changed everything for me. I started to see writing not as a solo performance, but as a process that gets better when you invite others in. I began sharing my draftswithclassmates,askingmyfamilytoreadmywork,andevengoingtotheschool’swriting center. At first, it was uncomfortable letting people see my messy drafts and it felt like exposing a secret. Over time, I realized that no writer, no matter how “good,” creates something perfect on their own.

Since then, I’ve come to believe that asking for help isn’t failing; it’s being smart. It’s caring enough about your work to want it to grow. This belief doesn’t just apply to writing. It’s somethingItrytocarryintoeverythingIdo.Somanypeoplestaystuckinsilencebecausethey think needing help makes them less talented or less capable. I think the real failure is never reaching out. Not everyone agrees with this. Some people still believe in the myth of the “lone wolf,”but I believe we’re better when we build things together, even words. If words are meant to connect us, why do we feel like we have to write them alone?

Mariana Peñafiel Ide | 2025, UMassD Believes 2nd PLACE WINNER

How to Become a Feminist

This is not a guide or manual on how to become a feminist. I don’t have the answer to that. I don’t know if there’s a recipe, and if so, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know the magic trick. I don’t have the key to this mystery. I just have a story. 

It starts with a woman. She grew up surrounded by hate. It doesn’t matter where or when she was born. She was born into this world, so she inevitably learned to hate.

I was raised in a conservative Catholic school, grew up in a very privileged home and lived in a closed-minded community my entire life. I also had access to the internet from a very young age, which resulted in my being exposed to the toxic, anti-feminist content of male influencers. I constantly heard people mocking feminism. People hating feminism.

So, religion, conservative speeches, privilege, and “red pill” content are not the best conditions for a feminist to grow strong and healthy. And I know this firsthand. I wasn’t always a feminist. At the end of the day, it is kind of hard to become something that everyone is hating on.

I was raised to see feminism as a joke. For a long time, I laughed at it too.

To this day, I still don’t know how or when I became a feminist. I just know I eventually started to feel uncomfortable in the privilege I once found comfort in. I realized that no matter how much I fought against feminists, they never even once stopped fighting for me. I was using the voice that millions of women had fought for me to have, to confront them, to reject them, and to hate them. 

I don’t know how to become a feminist because even when I had been oppressed, abused and harassed, I still, for some reason, decided that the problem was the women fighting for me – not a world full of hate.

I don’t know how to become a feminist in a world that is so good at hating women – so intensely – that even women started to turn on each other.

I don’t know how to become a feminist when the word “feminism” has been so crucified by a society that it keeps thinking this fight has been built on resentment. And they couldn’t be more wrong. This fight was built by people who are tired of the hate in this world.

I don’t know how to become a feminist, because becoming one isn’t a clear path. It’s full of barriers you must destroy in order to continue. And the hardest ones to destroy will be the ones you once built yourself.

The process is not the same for everyone, but I can assure you that it will be uncomfortable and painful. You will doubt yourself and you will feel shame. You will have to unlearn everything you once accepted as truth.

Because becoming a feminist is not something you learn. It’s something you unlearn.

You will have to unlearn the hate you carry for everything you now want to be.

As I said, this is my story. But it’s not just my story. It’s the story of millions of women who, at some point in their lives, have been blinded by hate.

This is not a story about how a woman becomes a feminist. It’s about why she becomes one. 

It is the story of the day she realized that women already have too many enemies to become one herself.

I know it’s not easy.

Being a feminist means admitting that the world is not fair. It is understanding that, just because you were born a woman, you will have to work harder to be seen, heard and respected. It is also acknowledging that there are millions of women you will not be able to save. It is accepting that there are so many girls who believe they are alone because they cannot hear the voices of those who fight for them, those who care about them.

Sometimes it even means having to admit that you were so blindly wrong and that you were fighting against yourself for years. Becoming a feminist means accepting that there is something wrong with the world we live in. A world that kills, rapes, blames, exploits, harasses, silences, abuses, and oppresses women. A world that hates.

But also, becoming a feminist is a way of screaming to the world that you will no longer accept their hate. It’s a way of saying that you will no longer hate.

I became a feminist the moment I refused to keep hating myself.

Hayley Mimoso | 2025, UMassD Believes 3rd PLACE WINNER

Intelligence Isn’t Everything

My mom graduated from Dartmouth College in 2001. Yes, the Dartmouth College, as in the Ivy League institution. So naturally, I assumed I would also go to an Ivy League institution because that’s what all intelligent people do. But then I reached my senior year of high school and realized that there was no way I could afford to go to an Ivy League school, especially if I was considering going to medical school after receiving my undergraduate degree.  

At first I was really upset. In movies, shows, and books, the smart people always go to Ivy League colleges. But what I eventually realized was that I actually didn’t want to go to any of these schools. I didn’t want to be far from home. I enjoyed spending time with my family and I wasn’t ready to leave the area I grew up in. I started touring local state schools and fell in love with all of them. I talked to students who went to these schools and realized that I fit in with many of them. I also liked that state schools had rigorous academic courses but also lots of opportunities for fun, such as student activities, a myriad of clubs, and school-wide get togethers.   

However, as I watched my best friend get into Brown, I started doubting myself again. I felt like going to a state school was a mistake and that I was wasting my potential. I felt like maybe I was doing the wrong thing: saving my money by going to a state institution and not going into debt for a “world class” one. I felt dumb. 

It actually took me until the end of my senior year to realize that intelligence doesn’t require a diploma from Harvard. Good grades don’t necessarily make you intelligent. In fact, the definition of intelligence is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge to skills.” Grades, college, and job titles are not mentioned anywhere in that definition.  

I think what made me realize the true definition of intelligence was completing my EMT course. I met many very intelligent people that were not doctors, lawyers, etc. Most went to state colleges or trade schools, and some didn’t even go further than high school. Some were firefighters, chefs, teachers, yet they all had something in common: work ethic. Every single person I met had worked hard to get the job they currently had, and were then continuing to work hard to get their EMT license. So, to me, all my EMT peers were intelligent because they were able to acquire and apply knowledge and skills to their professions. And then they further applied knowledge and skills to our EMT class. They taught me that work ethic is more important than intelligence, which is something that I have never really thought about before. I always assumed that you needed to be intelligent to succeed in life, but at the end of the day, work ethic goes a lot farther.  

However, even after realizing that work ethic is more important than intelligence, I still didn’t feel confident in my college decision. What ended up making me confident in my decision was one of my EMT instructors, who also happened to be my town’s fire chief. After 13 years of school, I’ve never had a teacher who was that passionate about what they taught. His in-depth knowledge of emergency prehospital medical care really inspired me. It was then that I really felt confident in my college decision. He didn’t go to an Ivy League college or have a doctorate degree, but he was extremely intelligent and had an incredible work ethic. He made me realize that impressive and intelligent people don’t need to have an Ivy League college degree or an MD next to their name. Even though I would like to become a doctor, I’m not doing it because I think I have to or because I think it makes me seem smart— I’m doing it because I want to and because I believe it will make me happy. My senior year of high school has taught me that life is too short to care about what other people think and to just do whatever makes you happy.