 Although in high school Streep appeared in numerous school plays , she was uninterested in serious theatre until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969 , in which she gained attention across the campus . Vassar drama professor Clinton J Atkinson noted , " I don 't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting . She really taught herself " . Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines . She received her BA cum laude from the college in 1971 , before applying for an MFA from the Yale School of Drama . At Yale she supplemented her course fees by waitressing and typing , and appeared in over a dozen stage productions a year , to the point that she became overworked , developing ulcers . She contemplated quitting acting and switching to study law . Streep played a variety of roles onstage , from Helena in A Midsummer Night 's Dream to an 80 @-@ year @-@ old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then @-@ unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato . One of her teachers was Robert Lewis , one of the co @-@ founders of the Actors Studio . Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do , remarking that the professors " delved into personal lives in a way I find obnoxious " . She received her MFA from Yale in 1975 . Streep also enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College in the fall of 1970 , and received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981 . 
