Grade-Specific Goals

The more freedom, the more responsibility

As you go B4 → master's → PhD, your freedom grows: choice of theme, use of time, how you run your research. And as freedom grows, so does the responsibility you take on — Suzuki Lab's view of academic years is a "two-axis model of responsibility." The horizontal axis is research responsibility; the vertical axis is community responsibility. Moving up a year means moving toward the upper right of this plane.

Responsibility by year

• 🚀 B4: experience and integrity
  Run the research cycle once. Share results and struggles honestly. Perfection is not required. Running the cycle is the responsibility.
• 🏁 Master's: completion and supporting juniors
  Submit one Original. Support and guide the B4s. The responsibility to complete.
• 🏆 PhD: defining an axis, and culture
  Define your own research axis. Protect and grow the lab's culture. A Review is one form of establishing an axis.

Expectations are explicit

This is not optional. It is the baseline.

Quarter Plan: not a progress report, but a visualization of your thinking

Strategy is designed in quarters (90 days). Divide the year's research journey (from theme decision to paper submission) into Q1–Q4, and review the structure each quarter — the Quarter Plan is not a progress-report document but a tool for visualizing the structure of your thinking.

Why 90 days: research is a long-distance run, but design should be done over short distances. In a short stretch, you notice structural drift right away. The B4 goal is not perfection but "the experience of one cycle" — 90-day design supports that.

And before moving, identify where you are (Identity Snapshot — YOU ARE HERE). With a vague current position, you cannot design forward motion.

→ How to use the Quarter Plan, the template, and the roadmaps by year are explained in Lab Tools "Quarter Plan".

The B4 year: counting back from deadlines

B4 is not a year in which you only do research. External events — entrance exams, job hunting, coursework — press on your research. So design by counting back from the deadlines.

The four typical collapse patterns: ① stopping for entrance exams ② going silent when stuck ③ not sharing while waiting for completion ④ collapsing under doing everything at once. The Quarter Plan is the device that prevents these.

Note that what is evaluated is not "results." Understanding, logical presentation, Q&A, the structure of your materials — all by-products of structured thinking. Complete one cycle, and the skills follow.

The master's two years are "one long cycle" — it is decided in M1

• M1: exploration and design — Focus on Framing. By mid-M1, "Axis fixed" — fix the axis
• M2: convergence and completion — The acceleration phase. Those who panic in M2 did not design in M1

The reality of M2: first draft in September, mid-term presentation in November, submission deadline in January. Time vanishes suddenly. That is why you design in M1.

The structure of the PhD's three years: build, expand, integrate

1. D1: build the axis — Axis Construction. Review paper (externalizing the hypothesis)
2. D2: expand — Original Expansion. Deepening methods, independence
3. D3: integrate — Integration & Positioning. Designing the structure of the thesis

"Axis-less PhDs will drift."