At least you know when you ask an Oscar-winning actress to be your commencement speaker that she probably won’t botch her lines, but will she actually have anything of value to say, or will she just spend 90 minutes exploring the nuances of her “craft”? Barnard College took this gamble, but on a pretty safe bet, when it chose Meryl Streep to send its she-grads off into the great unknown that is today’s job market. Here’s what Streep brought to the podium Monday.

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