Sophia Long, a junior at Mount Si High School, won an honorable mention in C-SPAN’s 2025 StudentCam competition.

StudentCam is an annual competition funded by C-SPAN’s Education Foundation that asks middle and high school students across the country to create short documentaries centered on a specific theme. This year’s theme was “Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?” and Long chose the topic of healthcare.

“The biggest issue by far with the healthcare industry is the fact that a lot of people don’t see it as a fundamental right,” she said. “Because of that, there’s a huge disparity with healthcare, and people just don’t get the care they need.”

Long’s six-minute documentary, “Healthcare: A Fundamental Right,” addresses the importance of broad access to healthcare and the effects of rising healthcare costs in the United States. She interviewed a peer who has been treated for multiple medical conditions; a woman who is both a cancer patient and works for a cancer treatment center; a member of the Snoqualmie Valley Health Board of Commissioners; and Washington State Sen. Bill Ramos.

“I chose healthcare because a lot of my family members and friends have experienced those issues, and one of the biggest issues is how costly health insurance is and a lot of times, even if you do have health insurance, it’s not enough,” she said.

Long said she believes strongly in universal healthcare and Medicare for all. She hopes that a lack of access to healthcare, or cost of healthcare, won’t negatively impact her loved ones one day.

“My parents have told me especially that one of their biggest fears is if they had a chronic illness or pain later on, and if they didn’t have the money to pay for that, we would probably have to sell our house or something,” she said. “We wouldn’t know what to do, and there wouldn’t be anyone to take care of them.”

Long is passionate about healthcare, but she is also passionate about videography. Having taken some digital media courses, she was specifically interested in entering a video-centric competition like StudentCam.

“I like how you can formulate a narrative,” she said. “I’ve really been interested in writing lately, and I love how you can form a nonfiction story, or a fictional story, or any type of thing that you want.”

Long did everything for the project, including obtaining interviews, capturing b-roll, editing it all together and adding a voice over, which she said was one of her favorite parts.

“I’m trying to develop my portfolio so I can hopefully apply for some voice acting jobs,” she said, though she sees voice acting as more of a hobby.

Her current plan after graduation is to get a degree in either computer science or human-centered design before going to law school, but her ultimate goal is to own her own business.

Long said everything she is learning now is preparing her for that goal.

“It taught me about storytelling and creating a compelling narrative and also combining video editing, audio and music production,” she said. “It helped motivate me in my future goals. … One of my biggest goals is to own my own business and video, writing, audio — pretty much everything is a part of what goes into a business.”