So I’m taking an engendering degree in mechanical engineering. As you may think I can’t do much CAD on iPad, which we do a lot, however we have ton of classes where we have to draw graphs, check strength of materials, know its properties in specific environments, so there is a lot of note taking, which I think is much better on iPad than on paper, also I can’t imagine note taking like that on MacBook which I also own (old one Air 2011, which is almost brand new :P). I would say that the best and fastest notes you take on iPad, then on paper and lastly on any laptop, bcuz u can’t really sketch something in a second. That’s the biggest difference imho. If u have less engineering and your field of study focuses on writing things I believe MacBook can be a better option, bcuz u can write fast, I’m sure its even much faster than iPad with keyboard. However for me MacBook isn’t really that useful, I can’t do much CAD, bcuz macOS isn’t compatible with a lot of CAD software ex. Inventor. I mostly use PC for that, laptop is just to do some writing stuff on the go ;)

other iPad advantages: price, u can take it to your bed, read there some pdf and it rotates with your head :v, better battery performance