The Module Ladder — Undergraduate, Graduate, Doctoral, Forever-Learning

The teaching-plan layer of the Dream Pursuit Doctrine curriculum. This page is the index that links the three degree-tier folders and the shared core, so a learner or instructor can see the ladder at a glance.

The repository has two kinds of teaching plans:

1. The shared core and the audience tracks (single-semester, graduate-altitude): shared-core.md is the six-session spine; strategic-initiative.md, mba.md, and mpa.md are the three audience tracks used by the 14-week semester course (course/syllabus-semester.md). Two cross-cutting modules sit alongside the tracks: human-ai-collaboration.md (running the gate with a machine — brief, review, hold accountable) and company-building.md (standing a GovCon firm up from zero, for MBA and Strategic Initiative students).
2. The degree-tier module folders (full programs): undergraduate/, graduate/, doctoral/, and forever-learning/ carry the teaching plans for the four-rung degree ladder. Every module still follows the contract in modules/module-template.md.

The ladder

Tier	Program overview	Module folder	What the tier teaches
Undergraduate	B.S. in Government Business Development	modules/undergraduate/	The foundations: DL 101–480, fourteen-week rhythm, literacy scaffolding.
Graduate	M.S. in Capture Management	modules/graduate/	The craft at master's altitude: GC 501–540 core, GE 610–651 electives (incl. GE 650 pipeline economics & GE 651 orals coaching), research methods.
Doctoral	Research doctorate	modules/doctoral/	The discipline as a research field: methods I–II, empirical design, the research agenda, plus the doctoral-advanced research seminars (AI systems, advanced capture management, partnerships & ecosystems).
Forever-Learning	Lifetime tier (executive · alumni · post-doctoral)	modules/forever-learning/	The discipline as a lifetime: executive master classes, the post-doctoral fellowship, the alumni community, the refresh machinery, the twenty-year arc.

How to read the ladder

• Start with the shared core. Every tier teaches the same durable doctrine — shared-core.md is the fastest way to see the spine.
• Undergraduate spreads it thin. The undergrad folder (modules/undergraduate/README.md) explains how the shared six-session arc becomes a fourteen-week undergraduate rhythm with weekly deliverables.
• Graduate deepens it. The graduate modules (modules/graduate/) re-teach the same concepts at full working-professional depth — finance, game theory, research methods — and prepare the student for the doctorate. The v0.5.0 electives add pipeline economics & portfolio management (GE 650) and orals coaching & presentation discipline (GE 651).
• Doctorate makes it a research field. The doctoral tier (modules/doctoral/) is not more depth on the same material; it is the discipline turned into research questions, study designs, and evidence. The ORBITAL Outcome-Data Research Agenda is the map of open questions the doctorate exists to answer.
• Forever-Learning sustains it. The forever-learning tier (modules/forever-learning/) is the fourth rung: the standing programs — executive education, the post-doctoral fellowship, the alumni community, the refresh and recertification machinery, and the twenty-year arc — that keep a person learning, teaching, and contributing for a career. Its program overview is course/forever-learning-program.md.

Keeping this index honest

When you add a module to any tier folder, add it to the manifest (manifest.yaml) in the same change, per the repo's editing rules (CLAUDE.md). If the ladder itself changes (a new tier, a renamed program), update this page and the crosswalk in align/concept-to-system-map.md together.

The federal market is not a lottery. It is a pipeline — and the pipeline is teachable from the first undergraduate week to the doctoral dissertation.