Re: are there a large need for engineers? If so what type?

Well, here goes.  The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has a site and this one 
has some of the information you want:

  http://stats.bls.gov/emphome.htm

You can then follow links to Professional and Technical Occupations.

The US news magazines, Time, US News and World Report, and Newsweek run at 
least annual articles on Job Projections -- the generic name of what you 
want to know.  Your librarian can help you find the latest issues. 

Watch out.  Job projection sources can be biased.  Some so-called 
professional societies make projections as if they want to create an 
industrial oversupply.  Look at those fields where there are PhDs looking 
for jobs that aren't there.  Chances are they were victims of such biased 
advice.

So what should you do?  I assume you think you'd like engineering.  Fine.  
Know that is a difficult first degree.  More than one lawyer and physician 
who took his first degree in engineering has said it was the hardest.  But 
you did learn how to work!  And that's what you're in school for -- to learn 
how to work.  (In saying this I am echoing Ralph Nader from a speech at 
Monroe Community College back in 1972.)

In each engineering discipline, the level of abstraction you must deal with 
varies.  Structural engineers can see the truss they are building to support 
a load.  Chemical engineers must "imagine" the interactions going on in the 
soups they are trying to manipulate.  If you are the kind of person who must 
see what's happening, choose a less abstract field. 

I think you'll find worldwide need for engineers as the developing world 
industrializes.  But engineers are often accused of being narrow.  One of my 
unfavorite colleagues has referred to us as "skilled automatons."  Well, I 
know who's half-educated.  Do take seriously the economics, sociology, and 
humanities you are asked to take.  They are not BS courses -- they are a 
part of what you need to be an educated person.

Engineering subjects, like controls engineering, have applications in 
economics and physiology.  Breath into a balloon for a minute and see what 
increased CO2 in your blood does to respiration rate!  Just because 
engineering was your first degree doesn't mean you cannot branch out.

So go to the library and exercise that keyboard and those librarians.  Good 
luck to you.

Larry Skarin