Hey y’all,
I was recently accepted to the PLTW program in school for my freshman year, starting in the fall, and I was needed some advice regarding this. I aspire to become a doctor one day, and I thought that this program would allow me to gain some critical thinking skills, and give me a chance to apply my math and science skills in “real world situations”. The program that I one day hope to enter is the Northwestern University/Feinberg Medical School HPME, (or the Brown University PLME) and go that route for my M.D. I was wondering however, since engineering isn’t extremely close or related, really, to medicine, if taking part in the program will raise an eyebrow. Thanks for all your replies in advance 
EDIT: I’m thinking about doing Biomedical Engineering MAYBE in undergrad. Also, I would have to take up an elective every year in high school to take part in this program. However, my high school is great in helping kids take part in everything that we desire, so I’m hoping that they can help me with this situation. I want to take Orchestra and Choir.
Hey there, I’m a current high school sophomore that’s also interested in BSMD programs. Although I can’t say much, I can tell you that for me, PLTW Intro to Engineering was a waste of time frankly since we basically just sat in front of a computer doing CAD. Some of my friends are taking POE or Digital Electronics this year and they are also complainiting about the course since it is taught badly and is rather useless. Hope this helps.
It seems that PLTW varies across schools. For me, I’m currently taking IOE as a senior so it’s pretty much a nostalgia run of everything I’ve learned in my pass four years, my teacher has given me some of the POE stuff to work on as it’s a tad bit more engaging/less review.
However my teacher has a habit of giving his classes large projects, and those I actually find to be both fun/engaging activities. One was this reverse engineering project where I had to pretty much document, CAD, and assembly a device that had across 30~40 complex parts. The other is designing an entire stadium, which is still in progress and we’ve been going around to different stadiums in our city to get ideas/inspiration.
All and all it’s a nice class, however it is extremely time-consuming and I would say difficult for freshman. I don’t think my freshmen self would have passed that class with anything higher than a D, the course requires a lot of self-studying(as stated above, it’s mostly the teacher reciting PLTW’s poorly made powerpoints) and commitment, staying long hours after school or late at night is not uncommon and I don’t think my moving up from middle school to high school are really ready for that level of rigor.
I would honestly recommend taking the class during your sophomore year[if you ever become set on], that way you’re more adjusted to highschool life and you’ll be able to get the opinion from other students of varying levels(something I don’t think you’d be able to do as an incoming freshmen).
I believe that if you want to improve your CTS, that you should maybe take computer science classes, where that kind of thinking is more prevalent in the classroom vs engineering classes, however engineering is ,as I’ve stated above, many times more rigorous than computer science classes(at least the ones in my school) and I believe that someone planning to become an engineer or a doctor would benefit greatly from getting that experience of overcoming that rigor.
Hope this helps.
@RochesterREMS Aw, dangit… I already committed to it, thinking “What could it hurt?” Do you think that it would be worth making a big fuss to opt out of the program? I’m kinda scared now because it’s the first year that it’s being taught at our school (we’re the first class) and that just adds to the possibility that it could be taught poorly 
@QuadMaster Hi, thanks so much for your response. However, I’m concerned because despite the level of difficulty that you state, we’re required to accept now or forever hold our peace. We can’t say no now, and try to take it later, as it’s a “four year program”. Most likely, I’ll pick Orchestra or Choir over the program though so irdk. Also, I’ve been interested in CS, but as I said to Rochester, I already committed.
Also, what does CTS mean? lol @QuadMaster thanks again
Critical thinking skills.
@QuadMaster ohhhh ok thanks haha
If you are already in the class and there’s nothing you can really do I recommend you try to get the most out of it. I’d advise keeping your ECs to at max 1 if not zero for at least the first semester so that you get adjusted to the workload.
@QuadMaster Alright. Thanks a bunch. And I will haha, although, after that I can’t promise anything because I love participating in ECs XD. Like literally I’m in everything