By Kasia Gruszkowska, Sky News Foreign Desk.

American universities are places like no other. My former home of The University of Illinois is little different from Virginia Tech. Thirty-thousand people, not just part of a city, but a city in its own right, a vast community that is your entire world.

Every Hollywood stereotype is there - but they are real. They aren't just jocks, cheerleaders, geeks and goths, they're your classmates, neighbours - and friends.

The campus looks like real life but it comes with a safety net. You have your own bars, restaurants, bookstores and malls, your doctor, your gym, your own bus service, your own police force. Turn a corner from the "real" city and you've entered a parallel world - one where everyone feels secure. That strange guy on the corner - actually he's not so strange, you saw him in class. His friend turns out to be the best buddy of the guy in the basketball team who lives down the corridor - maybe his girlfriend is in your class.

It's an extraordinary social network. The campus offers something for everyone - you assume that everyone belongs in some way, because there are so many ways to fit in. And that is why no American college grad can stand to see the events of past few days.

It could have been your dorm, your class, your friends. Your campus becomes a source of pride, you protect those who wear the colours - at the University of Illinois, we were "Illini", at Virgina Tech, they are "Hokies". That's where the Hollywood films get it right. College life isn't real life, it's fiction. it's a dress-rehearsal where the worst that can happen is wearing last year's fashion or getting a bad grade.

A reality worse than anyone could imagine came to Virginia Tech this week - but to Americans it feels like it was every campus, every dorm - and that's why, right now, everyone's a Hokie.