Over the years, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing the ticker slide across the bottom of the television screen, showing us the recent actions in the stock market.

And since this summer, the ticker has been showing a lot of downward pointing arrows.

For many, it is just an abstract view of the world out there, but for soon-to-be graduates, it’s a sign of what’s in store.

For months, the economy has experienced a slowdown, due to changes in fiscal policy, economics Professor Charles Ballard said.

“The government turned to tap on the brakes, but if you hit the brakes too hard you don’t just slow the economy down, you stop it,” he said.

The events of Sept. 11 added to the already frustrated situation by affecting the businesses depended on by a wide range of other industries.

“It threw sand into the works,” Ballard said. “It’s an extra slowdown of a particular type, it’s something that’s messed up our transportation system and some of our communications.”

With a falling economy, many businesses and industries seek to save money and one of the simplest ways to accomplish that is to cut spending, which can lead to a decrease in payroll.

“The only thing companies have to combat (a falling economy) is to manipulate their inputs and the only way they can immediately do that is by cutting payroll,” said Phil Gardner, research director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute.

But not every graduate can expect to see increased competition in the job market, as not all fields are experiencing the same economic tumble.

Transportation and related fields have seen the worst of the situation so far, but other fields, such as education and pharmaceuticals, have hardly been affected, Gardner said.

Hence, students in the College of Engineering or science fields could see fewer opportunities after they flip their tassels this coming December.

This trend has spread itself to other fields as well.

Business students will see many more job openings if they confine themselves to service-related industries instead of technology industries, said Eric Doerr, assistant director at the Lear Corporation Career Services Center, a career services center for business students.

“If you talk to places like Intel or companies that are more into the technology field, the people are not buying technology devices to the extent that they were,” he said. “Some of them are still hiring, it’s just not in the numbers that they were previously.”

Some graduates, however, will see the same opportunities as graduates a year ago.

Students in the College of Education can expect no increase in competition for jobs, mostly because of the strength of the program at MSU, said Joan Smith, certification officer and coordinator of student affairs for the college.

MSU graduates go through a five-year program. The fifth year consists of gaining classroom experience while taking graduate-level courses, freeing up room in their undergraduate studies for more courses in their field of teaching.

“They’re taking 24 credits of teacher-ed courses their fifth year, so they’re taking 24 general courses in their undergraduate years,” Smith said. “This gives them very good backgrounds in their subject area.”

And unlike many other fields where competition for jobs will increase with the economic recession, many teachers will see a decrease in competition, Smith said.

“The fact of the matter is there are a lot of teachers out there who are eligible for retirement,” Smith said. “And there are a lot of kids in schools, more than there have been in years past.”

Matt Fisher, an art history junior, said how students are affected by the economy all depends on the individual and how he or she takes advantage of opportunities.

“I’m not really worried,” he said. “I’m not here to be trained to work a job. I’m here to learn or learn how to learn. This isn’t a trade school.”