A classmate of mine in high school, one year ahead of me, was apprenticing at a local funeral home while still in school. Is that unusual?
Maybe not. I knew a guy a year or so behind me in high school who apprenticed at the only funeral home in town.
My husband did that 4 1/2 years while in school. It’s not what he does for a living now though.
Regulations vary from State to State, but all usually require education, followed by an internship. Here in PA I had to go through 20 months of mortuary school followed by 2 semesters of college credits to get a diploma for embalming/funeral directing. Once you have a diploma, you can state an internship at a funeral home lasting 1 year with a requirement on cases completed under an assigned preceptor. Once that year is complete, you apply for and take your State Boards for licensure. If you pass, you are a licensed funeral director. To my knowledge, at least in my State, a pre-mortuary education apprenticeship is not recognized, nor is it part of the “process”.
That being said, like any other profession people obfuscate the law. Your friend could have been serving an “apprenticeship” by helping out around the funeral home and learning the trade. Any work with remains or in making arrangements with a family would have been out of bounds however. Again though, I personally knew an owner who employed an embalmer for years who had no education and was not licensed.