Working with AI as a first-generation Latina
On Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, the Women in Business and Girls Who Code clubs hosted “Navigating Careers featuring Krystal Cano” to help students navigate the rapid changes artificial intelligence (AI) is implementing.
Cano wanted both clubs to know more about the struggles she went through finding her career, and what it was like working in the business industry. She faced discrimination, people telling her she wasn't worth what she was putting out in the world. She still managed to work with big companies such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (X), and even Meta. She has met CEO Elon Musk and worked alongside him when Waymo was being created.
Both clubs hoped to help students feel more comfortable with AI when looking for a job. Speaker Krystal Cano shared her experience growing up as a first-generation student experiencing AI and the struggles she faced.
Emmelia Goh, a business administration major and co-president of the Women in Business, holds meetings every Tuesday from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) building in room 150. Goh said, “This club is organized to have more female guest speakers because we noticed that most of the guest speakers are male.” Workshops are offered to help students feel more comfortable with starting a business.
The Girls Who Code club is run by Arfana Sham, is an electrical engineering major. Club meetings are held every Tuesday from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in room 263 of the Business Building.
“This is a very beginner-friendly, very welcoming space,” Sham said. “It's a great place to start learning about coding. This club will help people feel more comfortable with coding, starting from scratch, till they feel comfortable being around code.”
Krystal Cano, the guest speaker and a first-generation student at MIT from Orange County, Calif., was conflicted on where she wanted to steer her career toward. She asked a friend what she should do, and they suggested becoming a recruiter for LinkedIn.
When looking for jobs, Cano put all her experience and her resume on LinkedIn, and in return, she found all her job positions. Cano has been using AI since 2020. She said, “It's fairly new to the general public, but AI has been around since the '60s. So AI has been around for a very long time, but now the models are available to the public.”
AI has had a significant impact on Cano’s life, as she uses it to sort out the type of employee her job is looking for. She has been using AI for 5 years and continues to use it daily. As someone who worked for major social media companies, Cano said, “Social Media is organized to capture the user and get them stuck in whatever they may be watching.”
Cano said that her biggest struggle with AI is deciding what will work best with her needs. Since AI is advancing so quickly, Cano uses ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Clyde while she works. Another struggle is learning all the technology that comes around AI.
“The struggles that I have are really around, like, there's just too much information at once, that I think that the normal, average person could feel very overwhelmed,” Cano said.
Cano said, “I've had really bad things happen, and it's just one of those things that you have to learn from it, and you have to just grow from it, and know that you are a good person, and there are bad people in the world that will block you solely because you're a woman.”