It was after a grim event in freshman student Gina Baker’s life that she decided she wanted to study mortuary science.

“I wasn’t really keen on anything for a long time there, and then my seventh grade year my grandfather passed away from a heart attack suddenly,” Baker said. “And for a very, very short amount of time, I was around a funeral home.”

After giving it more thought and doing some research, she decided she wanted to work in the funeral services industry.

“For a while there, I was a whole emotional mess about it, because I would be like, ‘I want to be a funeral services major because of this!’ and cry about it and all that crap,” Baker said.

The major is only pursued by a small selection of Point Park University students – conventionally, mortuary science majors at Point Park spend their last year at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science (PIMS), as Point Park doesn’t offer all of the necessary courses.

Baker came into college with some experience in the field. While she was a senior at Belle Vernon High School in Pennsylvania, Baker got to miss a day of school to shadow Ferguson’s Funeral Home and Crematory, also in Belle Vernon, for her graduation project. She helped out with a funeral and had the opportunity to check the place out.

“They were all super nice and really caring and understanding toward everything,” Baker said.

Cracking into this business fulfills her desire to help people in an unconventional fashion. One of her hobbies is photography, and, naturally, she likes it because seeing photos often cheers people up.

“I’m all about making other people happy,” Baker said. “I don’t know why, it’s just been that thing I always do.”