Personally, if I was going to do a CS major, I’d get the 16. The smaller screen of the 13 would probably get on my nerve for multitasking (running test, debugging, etc).
Without the dGPU it’s fairly portable indeed. (I cannot tell with the dGPU as I didn’t need it) Not as much as the 13, but I remember my high school laptop being 15.6" and very heavy and I would still cary it around. The 16 is a breeze IMO. The downside is, depending on what you’re doing at the moment, the battery seems to drain a bit fast.
There are a lot of guides here and elsewhere for battery/power usage optimization. Like setting the governor to power save, dimming the screen if possible, not having 20 apps running on the system tray, etc.
My main concern with at laptop at school is cushion inside the bag, whether it’s a backpack or a luggage type of bag.
