Career advice needed\question about polls and pollsters [View all]

[coalition_unwilling]

I have been toying with the idea of pursuing a career in politics for what I hope is the final phase of my working career. I am interested in public opinion polling and surveys but don't really know where to start my investigation.

Some questions:

Do polling firms recruit out of poli sci and sociology departments primarily? Or do they tend to look at marketing\biz majors?
Is the best way to enter the field primarily from an academic background or can one easily enter it through another avenue?
How could a humanities major (English and History) break in to the field?

I have job experience in teaching, IT, writing and editing and customer service\technical support. I'm reasonably sure that I have transferable skills that would fit right in to the polling segment of the economy but I have no idea where to begin.

Any advice\insight (or even recs about books to read) would be greatly appreciated. I'm located in Southern California on the west side of Los Angeles and currently am not in a position to relocate, barring some miraculous recovery in real estate.

I considered putting this in the Career Help and Advice forum, but that forum seems relatively lightly travelled and I thought some of the political junkies who actually do the work would be more likely to frequent GD.