QGIS is excellent, but personally I stopped using it as much when R's spatial data pipeline got better (particularly since the excellent sf package came around). Now, granted I probably was never a power user of QGIS -- just making very simple choropleths and stuff -- but the R, code-driven approach is more to my liking and I've run into fewer rough edges than I did with QGIS. Still, really mad respect for the software, and so glad that undergrads are learning on open software instead of paying buckets of cash to ESRI.