For $20 hell yeah, just it till it breaks

If you’re an engineering student, save yourself the headache and buy a windows machine. Parallels is far from a perfect solution.

try using a small amount of goo gone. It’s just citrus oils pretty much and is fairly effective in removing adhesives, I used it on uniforms in the past to remove patches, it doesn’t discolor or corrode anything.

Backlight bleed possibly? You can’t fix it but it sometimes happens. It isn’t very common though, you should take better care of your stuff.

Don’t get a maxed out model, that’s just an exercise in how much cash you can slip into Tim’s pockets. 36gb of ram is not a bad idea, although truthfully you should be fine with 18 for the entirety of the laptop’s useful life. I think the spec you picked out is great, I am currently using the full-fat M1 Pro and it’s a peach.

But that also begs the question, do you need a pro? If you move around a lot, an air might actually be a better machine for you.