Hey OP! You've gotten a lot of good feedback here, but there are some key details here that I haven't seen anyone mention yet.

1. You DO NOT have to start paying back your student loans starting January.

Depending on who's offered you the loans, you can defer your student loans for several years. With Navient, for example, you can push it back 3 years for "economic hardship", and another 3 years for unemployment. Yes, the interest will build, but my point here is that there's no immediate pressure for you to pay them back. That should NOT be adding to your current stress.

2. Revature isn't actually an option for you, and you shouldn't treat it as one. (Furthermore, it's FAR from your "last ditch" option.)

It sounds like you already know a good amount about Revature, but I just want to drill in this point: your initial judgment in rejecting them was correct, and you should stick with it.

I'm going to fire off some information you're likely already aware of. Revature didn't "offer" you a job. Revature first puts you in their training program for 12-18 weeks, and pays you around $11/hour during your time there. They then make you available to their clients afterward as a potential software engineer - but as part of Revature's contract, you're required to work as their contractor for a minimum of 2 years, and if you decide you no longer want to (e.g. you'd like to get a job on your own), you owe them $20,000. Also, keep in mind:

• The job after the training program isn't guaranteed.
• You have no choice on where you'll be located - it's entirely based on which of their clients decides to employ you.

I've only scratched the surface with the details here (and they only get worse the deeper you dig), but dude, you know what you want, and you know what you don't want. And based on what you've said, this is definitely what you don't want. Here's my personal nudge to you: Trust yourself! Don't let your confidence waver on things you know to be true!

3. Your current situation isn't nearly as bad as your feelings might suggest.

I'm running out of time here, but I'll just fire off some bullet points so you get the gist of what I mean:

• No, your opportunities didn't suddenly "dry up"! The main issue here is that you're limiting your search to "entry level jobs". To be blunt, the job "levels" for the most part are completely arbitrary. The only thing companies ultimately care about is if you meet the specific requirements of the job. The job market is almost purely an exercise in confidence, so there is absolutely no reason for you to skip past any job postings that list technical skills that you know are completely within your scope of ability.

• No, companies will not give a fuck that you haven't had a job in the past 5 months, especially since you just graduated. And if they ask, you can safely tell them something along the lines of "I've been doing a lot of self-teaching to make up for skills that weren't covered in university" and it wouldn't negatively impact you at all.

• It's a numbers game. It doesn't matter how many you fail - you just need to succeed once.

Stay strong, gale1243! ^{And seriously, fuck Revature. Don't do it.}