For those who have read my book 'LAlien', you know how much my time at the University of California-Los Angeles, better known as UCLA, meant to me. Those were my formative years, which for others often happen in their teen years.

I started attending UCLA in 2004 after transferring from Santa Monica college. I was already in my mid-20s and therefore much older than most Bachelor students. I absolutely loved my time at UCLA. The campus is spectacular. I never felt more at peace than when I sat on those lush, green fields of the campus.

This memory of a peaceful sheltered place was shattered this week when a gunman shot a UCLA professor in one of the engineering buildings. The years at university are supposed to be fun and careless - with the exception of caring about getting good grades. We meet new people, learn to deal with life on our own, have sleepless nights over exams (and parties), make friends for life and, most important of all, we get to know ourselves.

One thing nobody should ever have to worry about, whether at university or high school, is to get hurt or even die. No one should have to be afraid when going to class. Once it was determined that the shooter 'only' killed one professor and himself, there seemed to be a sense of relief that it was not a mass shooting like it had been the case in so many other school shootings. Have we come this far to feel relieved about only two dead people? I guess so. I mean, there is even a list of school shootings in the US on Wikipedia. There are seven entries just for this year so far and we haven't even made it halfway through the year yet.

I hope UCLA will still be - or again be - a place where young people have fun and have the time of their lives. Here is a little excerpt from my book about what it meant to me to be a student at UCLA:

Setting foot onto the UCLA campus for the first time as a member of the student body was one of those magical moments in life I will never forget. The campus was amazing. The architecture was movie-magic red brick and being in that surrounding filled me with a great sense of pride. The campus was located on a hill in Westwood with a sports field at the foot of the hill, and all the buildings where my classes were held, as well as the stunning library, were at the top of the hill. UCLA is so big that it has its own zip code. The campus was so green, which made going from one class to the next like walking through a park. In front of the campus store, where students and visitors could buy UCLA-branded merchandise like t-shirts, baseball hats or travel coffee mugs, there was a big bronze statue of a bear, which was the university’s mascot – the UCLA bruin. Unlike at Santa Monica College, the buildings reminded me of universities in Europe with arches and bell towers. The library was grand and impressive. This university had history. A sense of accomplishment came over me now that I was a student of this renowned institution. I, a non-native English speaker from a farm in the Austrian Alps, made it into UCLA! I couldn’t help but smile whenever I walked the campus grounds. I was beyond happy!

I AM BRUIN! HEAR ME ROAR!

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You can purchase 'LAlien- From the Austrian Alps to the Hollywood Hills' at: https://www.amazon.de/LAlien-Austrian-Alps-Hollywood-Hills/dp/3990498703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464960757&sr=8-1&keywords=LAlien