Brave Newbies and Red vs Blue are both corps you can get your pvp on with low skill points and in cheap ships. A friend of mine just signed up and I directed him to RvB to learn the ropes while he trains up skills. Brave Newbies operates in low security space, they are brave after all and RvB is two corps in permanent war in high sec space.
Eve is definitely not a single player game, for most people anyway but you are not required to train skills for 3 months before you can accomplish anything. There are players out there that earn the 600 million ISK needed to play for free during the 21 day trial.
some links:
http://bravenewbies.net/http://themittani.com/features/life-brave-newbiehttp://rvbeve.com
