Funeral Service Technology

Graduates are qualified to become funeral service practitioners who are duel licensed as embalmers and funeral directors. Practitioners prepare and preserve the body before interment. Other common duties include meeting with families, helping families plan services, planning and organizing various types of services, placing obituary notices in newspapers and handling paperwork. Many practitioners have opportunities to own their own business.

Additionally, graduates may look for careers with funeral service or allied mortuary careers such as burial insurance, casket sales representatives, burial vault, and other funeral related merchandise and equipment manufacturing companies. There are also positions such as autopsy assistants, pathology assistants, forensic field investigators, as well as licensed entities which deal with tissue and organ procurement. For these jobs, the degree received through a funeral service technology program often is sufficient for entry-level employment with some of these allied entities.

Lastly, many entrepreneurial-minded graduates may choose to utilize entities such as florists, perpetual care cemeteries, monument companies, cremation care, removal, and embalming services as an initial business activity before expanding such into a traditional full-service funeral home operation. And for some who have access to capital, there is the opportunity to purchase a funeral home from a current owner desiring to sell or who does not have family interest in continuing the business.

The employment outlook for funeral service practitioners according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment of morticians, undertakers and funeral directors is expected to grow by 7% from 2014-2024. The median yearly salary of funeral practitioners is $45,960, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Experience, level of employment, and geographical location influence the earning potential. Those who own their own funeral homes and are very successful can earn much more. Benefits may include paid holidays and vacations, health insurance, and pension plans.

Admission to the Funeral Service Technology Program at East Mississippi Community College requires all applicants to have acquired either a GED or high school diploma. The program further requires all applicants to have achieved either a score of 17 or higher on the ACT or a particular score on the ACCUPLACER test. Please see the program advisor or a counselor for additional information regarding testing times, locations and minimum scores.

To complete the program, students must complete all Funeral Service Technology courses with a minimum grade of “C.” Students must have active, hands-on participation in a minimum of ten (10) clinical embalming cases and may be required to perform such clinical exercises during the weekend at an off-campus clinical site.

A student who has taken one or more Funeral Service Technology courses, but who withdraws from the program and does not return for a three (3) years or six (6) semesters excluding summer semesters, must re-enroll under the current Funeral Service Technology curriculum at the time of re-enrollment and must re-take all required Funeral Service Technology courses.

Coursework taken at any funeral service program, which is transferred for credit to EMCC, will be evaluated and considered for acceptance in meeting the curriculum of the Funeral Service Technology program. However, no course in Comprehensive Review or a similar course designed for preparation for the National Board Examination as administered by the International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards, will be accepted for transfer credit.

The program in Funeral Service Technology has as its central aim recognition of the importance of Funeral Service personnel as (1) members of a human services profession; (2) members of the community in which they serve; (3) participants in the relationship between bereaved families and those engaged in the funeral service profession; (4) professionals knowledgeable of and compliant with federal, state, provincial/territorial, and local regulatory guidelines in the geographic area where they practice as well as (5) professionals sensitive to the responsibility for public health, safety, and welfare in caring for human remains.

The Funeral Service Technology Program has the objectives of (1) to enlarge the background and knowledge of students about the funeral service profession; (2) to educate students in every phase of funeral service and to help enable them to develop proficiency and skills necessary for the profession; (3) to educate students concerning the responsibilities of the funeral service profession to the community at large; (4) to emphasize high standards of ethical conduct; (5) to provide a curriculum at the post- secondary level of instruction; and (6) to encourage student and faculty research in the field of funeral service.

Freshman | First Semester | 16 Semester Hours
ENG 1113 English Composition - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1113 Mortuary Anatomy I - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1231 Clinical Embalming I - 1 Semester Hours
FST 1313 Funeral Directing - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1513 Restorative Art I - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2423 Funeral Service Business Law - 3 Semester Hours

Freshman | Second Semester | 16-17 Semester Hours
MAT 1313 College Algebra or Natural Science Elective - 3-4 Semester Hours
FST 1123 Mortuary Anatomy II - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1241 Clinical Embalming II - 1 Semester Hours
FST 1413 Funeral Service Ethics & Law - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1533 Restorative Art II - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2323 Funeral Merchandising and Management - 3 Semester Hours

Sophomore | First Semester | 17 Semester Hours
ACC 2213 Accounting I - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1213 Embalming I - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2251 Clinical Embalming III - 1 Semester Hours
FST 2713 Psychosocial Aspects of Grief & Death - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2613 Microbiology/Pathology - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2811 Current Issues in Funeral Service Technology - 1 Semester Hours
Social/Behavioral Science - 3 Semester Hours

Sophomore | Second Semester | 19 Semester Hours 
CSC 1113 Computer Concepts - 3 Semester Hours
FST 1223 Embalming II - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2261 Clinical Embalming IV - 1 Semester Hours
FST 2273 Thanatochemistry - 3 Semester Hours
FST 2813 Comprehensive Review - 3 Semester Hours
SPT 1113 Public Speaking I - 3 Semester Hours
Humanities/Fine Arts - 3 Semesters Hours

Work-based Learning is available as an additional elective based on opportunity and requirements.

 

National Board Examination pass rates, graduation rates, and employment rates for this and other ABFSE-accredited programs are available at www.abfse.org. To request a printed copy of this program’s pass rates and rates, go to Funeral Service Technology Office, Room 27A, Hawkins Building, Scooba Campus or by email at odickerson@eastms.edu or by telephone 662.476.5101.

 

PROGRAM INFORMATION

2018

• Total Enrolled: 23 
• # of New Students: 21  
• # of Grads: 5  
• Timely Grad*: 5/5 
• Graduation Rate: 38%   
• Did not Finish**: 11  
• Overall % Employed: 80%   
• Employed in FS: 80% 

2017

• Total Enrolled: 23   
• # of New Students: 18   
• # of Grads: 4   
• Timely Grad: 4/4   
• Graduation Rate: 17%   
• Did not Finish: 16   
• Overall % Employed: 100%   
• Employed in FS: 100% 

 

2016

• Total Enrolled: 18   
• # of New Students: 13   
• # of Grads: 9   
• Timely Grad: 9/9   
• Graduation Rate: 38%   
• Did not Finish: 7   
• Overall % Employed: 89%   
• Employed in FS: 56% 

*Timely graduation = complete program in 1 1/2 times designated program length.

**Left before complete the program; did not finish.

NATIONAL BOARD STATISTICS

3 year Average	% Pass Arts	% Pass Sciences
2016-2018	84%	94%
2015-2017	72%	75%
2014-2016	60%	77%
Most Recent	# Takers	# Passed
2018 Arts	6	5
2018 Sciences	5	5