Work places big enough where there are jobs opening up and there is internal opportunity. That's a key to rising. Then when you are starting to master that job, bail and join a new company because that's the only way to get huge jumps in salary. Last thing Id say is if you can sell no one cares about your degrees. So if you happen to not hate sales and you're not bad at it then find a way to sell expensive things because commission on expensive things is better, haha.