How's that again?

Actual conversation from Managerial Architecture & Organizational Economics this morning:

Professor: The European Union's new structure is becoming increasingly interdependent.
Student: Just like they were years ago.
Professor: Are you talking recently?
Student: No.
Professor: Well, Europe used to be made up of kingdoms and I don't see that they were necessarily interdependent.
Student: I was thinking about during the Roman Empire, actually.

And now that I think about it, yes, I can see that the Roman Empire actually had an M-shaped organizational architecture - with its multinational and geographic divisions, not to mention decentralized decision making rights.

In this same class, a few of our international students got into a argument about whether the Germans liked the Dutch or not; one student was especially insistent than the Germans did not like the Dutch, however the German in our class vehemently disagreed with this statement. I was amused.

I've also realized that our cohort is filled with some fine criminal minds - as evidenced by this conversation in Financial Accounting:

Student: Actually, I buy and sell houses and accelerate the depreciation on them for tax purposes.
Professor: Uh...
Student: It works. Saves on taxes.
Professor: I wouldn't do that. No, otherwise you'd be wearing stripes.
Student: I don't do it. I hired someone else to do it for me.

Trust me: this was the most mild of schemes to manipulate the books today. I was quite frankly impressed by the ingenuity of my classmates.