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Think of UCLA as a good book. As you enter its world, you must decide how you will read it. You can follow the plot for a few years on the most cursory level. Or you can observe the subtle details that build it into an encompassing experience.

Orientation is the introduction to this book. It provides a transition into life at UCLA and gives you the background information. It is very important in that respect; at the same time, don’t read the beginning only to skim the middle and pick it back up in the final pages.

If you gloss over most of the text, you might think UCLA is just another generic storyline about students in a daily grind.

You might miss that subplot about Nora, an undocumented student referred to only by first name for her protection, who came to UCLA in the hopes of becoming a math teacher. She is a specific example of the diversity at UCLA, and the struggles students face to get here.

Each student here has a subplot like Nora’s. Many of them include complications beyond the predictable, though you’d never know it by reading the UCLA synopsis of “student gets degree.”

Even this is only scratching the surface. Books are all about structure – and the UCLA structure is so well integrated that sometimes it’s easy to miss what’s going on between the lines.

Consider the dining hall experience. It isn’t until there’s a protest, like the one that happened in March of this year, that many remember dining hall workers have families and names, like Maria Vicente or Alex Salvador.

It isn’t until they stop working that we realize how important they are. Without them, and others like them, the smooth flow of campus services that we expect would be impossible.

Details in the setting make up another easily forgotten side of UCLA. The Fox Theater in the Village is more than just scenery making up a picturesque skyline. It’s a 170-foot reminder of a tradition dating back to 1931.

The tower highlights the minor characters of Westwood. It serves as a contrast to the empty storefronts that are part of the too-constant turnover of Westwood merchants. It pictures a community that both boasts of tradition and struggles with inconsistency.

Yet these details can become so enthralling that you forget the bigger theme.

It therefore might not occur to you to connect the Anderson Forecast, the leading authority for economic predictions in the nation, or its founder, former business Professor Robert Williams, to UCLA.

Within the confines of the dust jacket, it’s easy to understand UCLA only in reference to yourself. In reality, for 50 years it has functioned not only for the UCLA readership, but those worldwide.

This is symbolic of UCLA’s many other research projects led by UCLA professors that put us at the forefront of the nation.

These are the individual chapters of UCLA that bind its past, present and the possibilities of its future. As a new student, you can relax and leaf through the pages. Or you could benefit from the massive project, and perhaps even participate in crafting its narrative. Either way, take note of the details. And happy reading.