No man. Ipad is no way a comparison for laptops when it comes to doing huge programming projects. There us no replacement for laptops in this area.

You may purchase a IPad Pro, but a Laptop has many other advantages. You may need a Proper Laptop to run your simulation softwares, do coding and a lot more functions, which may not be as convenient in an iPad. Since you are in first Year, I would hence, advise you to buy something like HP Pavilion 2 in 1 Notebook having Touch as well as Type Functions, or you may purchase a Lower End Tab like Samsung Now and upgrade to a MacBook , once a Touch Screen Version is in market in the Next year or so.