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Nevaeh
Student
Purlear, NC
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Is becoming an embalmer worth it?
I'm beginning to apply to college to eventually become an embalmer and possibly a funeral director. For people that have went to college for this field, is it actually worth it? How fulfilling is the career? I'm worried of making the wrong choice and ending up in a career that I won't like, especially since being a mortician is one of the very few things that you can do with that kind of degree.
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Michelle M.
Actress
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Michelle’s Answer
Hello, Nevaeh !
The worth of any career is something that the person will have to determine and no one can tell you how to feel about it. If you are having doubts about it, explore it more before making the commitment for a college path for it.
You can go for either an Associate Degree or a Bachelors Degree in Mortuary Science at a college that offers that program. Thereafter, you can enroll in Funeral Directing School, which I would advise doing. Decades ago, Funeral Directors did the embalming as part of their usual work, but today, embalming can be an independent job not including funeral directing.
If you decide to become a Funeral Director after becoming an Embalmer, the one in-state program you can consider would be Fayetteville Technical Community College in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They offer an Associate Degree in Applied Science Degree in Funeral Service Education and a Diploma in Funeral Directing. The other one is in South Carolina out of state at Piedmont Technical College in Greenwood, South Carolina. This program prepares students for licensure as funeral directors and embalmers and includes hands-on training in state of the art facilities, including the Duncan Stuart Todd Embalming Lab and the B and L pet crematorium. Funeral Directing requires a resident traineeship, so if you choose this school, find out about how your License would apply to the state that you want to practice in.
A way to think about whether this career would be for you, you can start exploring the work. What does an embalmer do ? It means that you would be preparing human remains for burial or cremation. There are some steps you would go through for this. You would clean and disinfect the body using germicidal soap and towels or hot air dryers, and washing and drying the body to maintain hygiene. You would be making incisions in the arms or thighs to drain blood from the circulatory system and replacing it with embalming fluid using a pump. This process involves attaching a trocar to a pump tube, starting the pump, and probing to force embalming fluid into the organs. Your work would also consist of incising the stomach and abdominal walls to probe internal organs with a trocar, withdrawing blood and waste matter, and packing body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent gas or waste escape. There's more, but I think you get the picture.
What do Funeral Directors do ? Coordinating and managing funerals consist of meeting with families to discuss funeral arrangements, understanding their needs, and guiding them through decisions regarding burial, cremation, visitation, or memorial services. You would select caskets, urns, flowers, and other memorial items, and help families create personalized services. You'd also do scheduling the date, time, and location of services, arranging transportation of the deceased to the funeral home and to the cemetery or crematory, and coordinating with clergy, musicians, florists, and other vendors And sometimes you would do the embalming.
So the best way to know if these careers would be for you would be to think about the actual work and determine if the job duties are something you'd like to do. You can generalize about the financial factor based on whether you work in a large city or small town. The family and friends I'm familiar with who are funeral directors all established their careers in a large city and were/are very successful financially. Everyone's career goes differently, however.
So if you have doubts, give yourself more time and maybe even visit some funeral homes and ask about volunteering there. Just being around the environment will help you make a definite decision one way or the other.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best.
The worth of any career is something that the person will have to determine and no one can tell you how to feel about it. If you are having doubts about it, explore it more before making the commitment for a college path for it.
You can go for either an Associate Degree or a Bachelors Degree in Mortuary Science at a college that offers that program. Thereafter, you can enroll in Funeral Directing School, which I would advise doing. Decades ago, Funeral Directors did the embalming as part of their usual work, but today, embalming can be an independent job not including funeral directing.
If you decide to become a Funeral Director after becoming an Embalmer, the one in-state program you can consider would be Fayetteville Technical Community College in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They offer an Associate Degree in Applied Science Degree in Funeral Service Education and a Diploma in Funeral Directing. The other one is in South Carolina out of state at Piedmont Technical College in Greenwood, South Carolina. This program prepares students for licensure as funeral directors and embalmers and includes hands-on training in state of the art facilities, including the Duncan Stuart Todd Embalming Lab and the B and L pet crematorium. Funeral Directing requires a resident traineeship, so if you choose this school, find out about how your License would apply to the state that you want to practice in.
A way to think about whether this career would be for you, you can start exploring the work. What does an embalmer do ? It means that you would be preparing human remains for burial or cremation. There are some steps you would go through for this. You would clean and disinfect the body using germicidal soap and towels or hot air dryers, and washing and drying the body to maintain hygiene. You would be making incisions in the arms or thighs to drain blood from the circulatory system and replacing it with embalming fluid using a pump. This process involves attaching a trocar to a pump tube, starting the pump, and probing to force embalming fluid into the organs. Your work would also consist of incising the stomach and abdominal walls to probe internal organs with a trocar, withdrawing blood and waste matter, and packing body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent gas or waste escape. There's more, but I think you get the picture.
What do Funeral Directors do ? Coordinating and managing funerals consist of meeting with families to discuss funeral arrangements, understanding their needs, and guiding them through decisions regarding burial, cremation, visitation, or memorial services. You would select caskets, urns, flowers, and other memorial items, and help families create personalized services. You'd also do scheduling the date, time, and location of services, arranging transportation of the deceased to the funeral home and to the cemetery or crematory, and coordinating with clergy, musicians, florists, and other vendors And sometimes you would do the embalming.
So the best way to know if these careers would be for you would be to think about the actual work and determine if the job duties are something you'd like to do. You can generalize about the financial factor based on whether you work in a large city or small town. The family and friends I'm familiar with who are funeral directors all established their careers in a large city and were/are very successful financially. Everyone's career goes differently, however.
So if you have doubts, give yourself more time and maybe even visit some funeral homes and ask about volunteering there. Just being around the environment will help you make a definite decision one way or the other.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best.