I taught myself LaTeX after I became dissatisfied with Word's typesetting of mathematical equations during my undergraduate education. Unfortunately, I did not discover LaTeX until after I graduated, but I was able to use it while working on my MSEE. I still use LaTeX whenever possible.

I consider myself an intermediate TeXnician -- more at the beginner level compared to most users on TeX.SE, but more at the advanced level compared to users on other SE sites (or maybe I'm just more of a perfectionist).