Student Spotlight: Lydia Lee

Lydia Lee, a Music and English graduate in the class of 2024, has accomplished and experienced incredible things during her time at Iowa State University. Lee has always had a deep appreciation for art in many forms, whether it be music or the written word. And the more she discovers in her classes the more she understands how they complement each other. Lee has been playing the piano since she was seven years old and practicing the clarinet since she was eleven, so when she arrived at ISU, a music major was the obvious choice. But her lifelong love of literature helped her decide on adding a major in English.

During her freshman year, Lee attended University President Wendy Wintersteen’s leadership class, which held weekly leadership workshops. After getting acquainted with Wintersteen, Lee was given the opportunity to work under Wintersteen in the President’s Office as a student assistant during her sophomore year. “I got to interact with a lot of university staff, attended meetings in the office, and got to help with a lot of university ceremonies and events,” Lee said. “It gave me a new appreciation for our college administrators.”

This connection eventually led Wintersteen to ask Lee to star in the 2023 ISU holiday video in which Lee played her original rendition of “The Bells of Iowa State” on piano. Lee can be seen playing the piece across all of the iconic campus locations, a process that took over 25 hours to film and required Lee to play the arrangement dozens of times. When asked to give advice to any incoming freshmen at ISU, Lee said “Try new things! As a perfectionist and someone who’s afraid of failure, I feel like the moments in my college experience where I’ve risked failure or looking silly have actually led to the most valuable opportunities. Take a chance on yourself.”

Lee plans on continuing her education in music and has been accepted at Cambridge University in the U.K. to get her Master’s degree in Musicology.

You can watch the video featuring Lee below.