Engineering: MacBook Pro 13 vs Surface Pro 3

Hello, I have a question that I cannot figure out myself. I am an Aerospace Engineering major and I have a desktop toshiba satellite that I use at home. It is a great laptop but it is two heavy to take to class every single day. My brother wants to give me as a gift either a MacBook Pro 12 or a Surface Pro 3 to take to class, and I cannot figure out what would be better. It doesn’t make sense to have two full functional laptops at home, but the I write hand notes and don’t think that I would use one note that much. Could someone give me advice on what to do as they are both great laptops.

If you like hand writing notes, the surface might be a good choice because it has a digitizer and stylus - really nice for taking notes on slides or freehanding notes.

My son has a Surface Pro 3 because his high school suggested and supported that brand for all students this year. It’s fragile. He’s very careful but the screen shattered and it’s not replaceable so we had to get a refurb replacement from the Microsoft store for $400. The keyboard sometimes doesn’t work with the tablet - they just stop communicating for no reason and Microsoft can’t figure out why (hours on the phone with this issue over many months). The breakage rate on these units was insanely high for his school this year - high enough that parents complained and they’re switching to Macbooks, which stinks because that’s what I wanted to buy in the first place. In contrast my daughter (the messy careless one) has a Macbook Pro that’s lasted all four years of high school. The think honestly looks like she’s run over it with her car a few times (probably has) and it works like a charm. Just my personal experience owning both. But I need to buy daughter a new laptop for college and it’ll be a Mac. Not even a contest.