I believe that intentional action sometimes called design thinking saves a lot of time and energy. Part of what we do as a creative is to look at who do we seek to change and what change to we seek to make for them? And then we have to make it for those people.
Design thinking in a nutshell is encapsulated with these three questions:
Who’s it for?
What’s it for?
And how will I know if it’s working?
These questions are essential, and if you don’t ask yourself them then you’ll probably end up stumbling around in the dark looking for solutions.
If you want to learn marketing you do it by doing marketing, by taking action. Reading marketing books and an internship is all well and good, I think you would be better off to figure out how you want to make a change happen and then do it. This is because if you get good at marketing there will be a lot of people who will want you to help them.