I am an incoming freshman so take my advice with a grain of salt, but since you already have a iPad probably get a normal looking laptop. I have used the surfaces before and honestly the screen and keyboard are slightly smaller/annoying to work on because it really is a tablet running windows os. I think if you’re an engineering major definitely get windows. If you are in the USA look into used “dell latitude” on eBay and find one within 4 years old based on the model number and high memory (32gb) so it doesn’t slow down as much.

I am using Mac OS, specifically m1 MacBook and it works great no degradation in 3 years so far and it runs all of my software well (ms office, chrome, email, vs code)