[rdl]

Congratulations for both becoming a US Citizen and for getting involved in tech! Great to see SE PA is developing more of a tech scene, too (I'm originally from there).

It's kind of frustrating that the state department consular staff dropped the ball on informing your family about applying for citizenship -- I know of people who ended up stateless after the fall of the USSR for similar reasons.

I suspect on the west coast there would be more opportunities to go to college without an SSN for financial aid (by using state or private grants), due to the relatively larger number of non-citizen or undocumented immigrants.