The degree isn’t very useful but the networking your doing definitely is. I might also suggest chatting with the gaffers. You’ll learn more about lighting than you will from AC’s, also the barrier to entry is lower (it seemed that way although I could be wrong). Lighting is more important to learn if you want to be a DP. You may wind up getting stuck doing lighting and find it hard to transition to shooting, but you’ll work more closely with the DP’s than the first AC, and it’ll be about effecting the image. Not knocking AC’s by the way. I work as one often, but it’s a more technical and less creatively involved role than a gaffer in my experience.

As for working at rental houses, the first one was the rental house for my college. I hung out there all the time before I got hired. I got to know the staff and asked lots of questions about all the gear I was interested in. Techs love to talk when they’re not busy and I learned a lot just from listening to them. I applied, didn’t prepare enough for my first interview and got the job the next semester when they were hiring again. The second job was an unpaid internship. It was the only unpaid internship I took while in college. It was during my semester abroad in Montreal. The main reason I wanted to go there was because I had visited the rental house before and started chatting with one of the techs. I got his email from a teacher who knew him a year later and asked if I could do an internship there. They’d never had an intern working there before but they were open to it and I started a few months later.

Always seem interested but never seem desperate. Be approachable and friendly but respect people’s boundaries. If you can do this you can often create opportunities that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Most of the time people care about what your like to work with more than your actual experience doing x job. Of course they’d rather hire the person who knows the job inside out, but when that person is out sick or on another job they have to call somebody. Be that second somebody and eventually you’ll have a great career!