Isleen Lee

Hello there! My name is Isleen Lee (pronounced I-leen; the s is silent), and I am a rising junior at Harvard-Westlake School, located in Studio City, California. My favorite subjects in school are history, English, and Spanish classes. Although I haven’t decided yet, the leading academic interests I want to pursue in college are communications and international relations. Because of my interest in the humanities, I formally joined New Hope Echoes (NHE) a few years ago, focusing on creating and presenting my PowerPoint slides about specific scientific topics. In third grade, my teacher formed a choir with a few classmates and me to perform in the performing arts section of the biannual New Hope Echoes concert. Back then, I didn’t know what I was doing, but only that I had one task to do: stand up straight and sing like we practiced. After many years, by the time I had re-heard of this organization, I was already in my last year of middle school. Nevertheless, I still took the opportunity to present the information I had collected through PowerPoint slideshows at every concert. The topics I covered ranged from global warming, food insecurity, the earthquake that affected Türkiye and Syria, and the effects of biodiversity loss. In early 2023, I, along with several other long-term participants, became the student leaders of New Hope Echoes and began working together under the guidance of Ms. Sung Kim, the director of NHE. With every concert comes unseen efforts that our student leadership team makes throughout the year. Although our concerts may seem like a small effort in the grand scheme of things, I’ve grown and continue to grow as a student leader and have gained more awareness and appreciation for the resources I have around me. Our concerts always focus on a specific global issue, whether it’s about politics, climate change, natural disasters, or a lack of natural resources in a particular country, and because of that, I was able to gain more awareness about global issues, which was part of what encouraged me to educate myself more on history and political relations. Even though our organization is not the biggest out there, we embody consistency and devotion to aiding underrepresented children and minority groups worldwide. Through my work thus far in New Hope Echoes, I’ve learned much about the importance of genuinely considering disaster-struck people rather than just my situation.