This North Campus Student Is Making Death Her Business
Samantha Alexander believes in reviving the dead.
The 19-year-old—a funeral service student at North Campus—is often tasked with embalming bodies.
Alexander dresses the deceased with makeup and clothing, places plastic eye caps to keep the eyes from shutting and prepares the body for casketing.
“Our job as funeral professionals is not only to provide a time and scenario where it is socially acceptable to grieve publicly,” Alexander said. “It’s a time to show the public that this person lived.”
On May 13, Alexander was rewarded for her dedication when she won a $1,500 scholarship from the American Board of Funeral Services.
The aspiring funeral director was one of six undergraduate students nationwide to receive the scholarship.
“She totally deserves it,” said Sonali Saha, the chair of the biology, health/wellness and funeral service education at North Campus. “She is a really sincere and dedicated student.”
Alexander’s passion for funeral sciences dates back to high school. When she was 17, she was a dual enrollment student at Miami Dade College pursuing an associate’s degree in nursing. She wanted to specialize in hospice care.
However, her mother, Maria Alexander, saw an alternate path for the teenager.
“She’s always been very detail-oriented and meticulous, so we always kidded about how she could maybe [study] forensics,” Maria said. “I was like, well, what about a mortician?”
Alexander originally thought the career was “disgusting,” but after doing some research, she was captivated by the embalming process and decided to take a job at a funeral home.
On her first day, she walked through a room with approximately 20-30 dead bodies and was unfazed.
“It didn’t affect me at all,” Alexander said. “It [looked] like a bunch of people that were sleeping,” Alexander said.
As she started to become more involved in funeral services, Alexander’s desire to care for the living, which once pushed her into nursing, blossomed into a desire to help those who are grieving. When she turned 18, she enrolled in the funeral services program at North Campus.
But the journey toward becoming a “last responder” hasn’t always been a smooth one.
While working at a local funeral home, she said she experienced verbal bullying. Co-workers scolded her in front of potential clients and refrained from teaching her how to do her job as a funeral services assistant, Alexander said.
“It made me feel stupid, like I wasn’t cut out for the job at all,” she recalls. “And when someone is telling you this over and over again for months, you start to believe them.”
Fortunately for Alexander, who now serves as a funeral attendant at Van Orsdel Funeral & Cremation Services, others have believed in her.
“[She has] a drive to be part of the profession,” said Tanya Scotece, the program coordinator of the funeral services education program at North Campus. “Most students, they’re just looking to go to school, finish the program and get a job at a funeral home. I don’t see many students like Sam that [are] that goal driven.”
Alexander has found a home at North. In April, she helped jumpstart a new funeral services club, Memento Morí Collective (Latin for “remember you must die”).
The organization, which has roughly 30 members, aims to foster relationships among funeral service students by conducting study sessions and taking strolls at cemeteries.
Alexander, who is slated to earn an associate of science in funeral services next spring, plans to pursue a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice at MDC and is now certain that funeral science is the field for her.
“It’s a calling,” Alexander said.
To join the Memento Morí Collective, contact mementomori.collective.mdc@gmail.com.
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