Why Revature Might Actually Be a Decent Choice

written December 9, 2021 | updated September 7, 2023

Get the training you need--and get (nominally) paid to do it.

You're graduating from college with a computer-ish degree. Popular wisdom says to know your algorithms and do some LeetCode--not a bad suggestion. But you keep running into companies asking for tangible skills in specific technologies. I packed my semesters full of courses but didn't work with the web technologies that most companies wanted.

No one would suggest a "training agency", right? (Cough, cough, staffing firm.) In 2019, after some complicated life stuff, I enrolled in a Revature .NET training. Perhaps surprisingly, my experience with Revature really did work out for my career.

Here are four reasons why Revature ended up being a good choice for me.

1. The Classroom Training

Yes, you should learn a lot. With my instructor, learning was fairly freeform. In general, we were encouraged to follow along and replicate his live coding examples. I was already familiar with some of the content, so I would keep tabs on his demo while working ahead or working on something else.

If you know most of your training's content, well, perfect. More time to self-teach.

2. Physical Relocation to Training

I'm not pretending this isn't also a downside, especially if you have a spouse or kids. However, it's hard to understate how much this increased my productivity. Using Revature-provided housing meant most logistics were taken care of. I cooked in bulk for the week and focused on work. Not being at home meant I was fairly distraction-free. I was able to spend 12+ hours a day on code.

3. Web-focused

I took a lot of software courses in college, but there were so many concepts to learn that I never wanted to waste my time with a web development course. I'm still glad I didn't. With Revature, I learned to build websites with ASP.NET and Angular 8, two things I'm confident would not have been extensively covered (if at all) in a university course.

4. Certifications

For my cohort, Revature would pay for two certifications a year (albeit from a list of your instructor's choosing). Pick the ones that align with your goals. I didn't end up using this benefit, since I didn't feel like this was the best use of my time.

The ladder's as tall as you climb

The most valuable benefit for me (which encompasses both the first and second reasons above) was the time. If you're motivated, you can learn and accomplish a lot in 10-12 weeks. If you're clever and fairly lucky, you can align your future plans with the content of your Revature training. Then, by the time you leave training, you just got paid to develop the technical skills you needed to build the kind software you want to build. If you're really motivated, and have a lot of content overlap, you may even have time to develop some software during training.

The side projects I worked on during my time at Revature didn't turn into a company, but they played a big role in the position I snagged after my Revature contract ended.

Do you get to choose your training?

I didn't. This could be almost as big a gamble as placed anywhere in the country, because the training you get determines what you'll be doing the next couple years. Fortunately, all of the trainings contain fairly current, web-focused technologies that are in-demand from companies.

Have you seen what they say on Reddit?

Yes. I thoroughly researched the company before signing on, and I took the leap anyway. I even hired a lawyer to examine my contract. My experience was not perfect, but it was far more pleasant than I anticipated. I think the company has taken steps to improve the experience of their "associates" and I hope they continue to do so.

For me, working for Revature was the opportunity that I made it to be. You might be able to make something out of it too.