I dreamt that I was serving as an external examiner in a doctoral examination at a British university. The doctoral candidate was in his late thirties or early forties. Short and pudgy, he was dressed in an expensive suit. His mentor was a colleague of mine dealing with construction economics, but I do not remember who he was. The topic of the dissertation had to do with construction cost estimation. In particular, it dealt with cost underestimates, which were quite typical of construction. Projects would often get a green light on low estimates, which were adjusted by the contractor along the way. These adjustments were sizable on occasion, but it was already too late to stop the project. I remember debating the reasons for this sort of thing with the candidate. I told him that I understood perfectly well that underestimates could results from faulty estimation procedures and the like, but I wanted him to tell me what would be another possible cause of systematic underestimates. He kept giving me synonyms for errors, but he avoided even hinting at fraud. Of course, contractors could collude with a representative of the project owner to make it happen by underestimating the project cost and subsequently adjusting the estimate in contractor’s favor. The candidate would not even consider it, though, and I was getting angrier and angrier as he fumbled for yet another answer suggesting lack of knowledge or changing circumstances. I felt like shouting as loudly as I could: “It’s fraud, stupid!” Seeing my growing anger, my colleague started fidgeting in his seat. He was getting ever more concerned about the tiff getting out of hand. In the end, I woke up. I was happy it was time to get up, too. And I felt no less than elated that all my links with the academia had been severed for good.