(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- While most teens admire engineers’ problem-solving skills and agree engineers are very smart, only 2 percent would invite an engineer to be their date at a wedding, further supporting engineers’ perceptions that society deems them as socially awkward, according to new surveys by ASQ.

But according to a survey of teens conducted by Kelton for ASQ, overall engineers’ perceptions are unfounded: only 9 percent of teens described engineers as socially awkward, and only 8 percent say engineers are boring. Furthermore, the survey finds 80 percent of teens view engineers as very smart and 68 percent agree engineers are problem solvers.

In a separate survey of 841 ASQ member engineers, 58 percent say they believe society in general views engineers as socially awkward and 48 percent think society views them as boring. In contrast, only 12 percent of engineers believe their peers are awkward and only 4 percent say they’re boring.

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