It all started in her junior year of high school about four years ago.

A fellow classmate in her pre-calculus class noticed she was doing well and asked her to help tutor, even offering to pay her.

She agreed and would ride her bike 30 minutes to help tutor for an hour and ride 30 minutes back home. She did so well tutoring that her classmate recommended her to five friends.

One day while tutoring in a Torrance library, a man noticed her and offered her a job at his tutoring business. She accepted and has been tutoring for four years.

Nanea Dominguez, 20, is a neurobiology major at El Camino and a supplemental instruction coach, a part of the Supplemental Instruction Program on campus aimed to help students enrolled in certain classes.

After having gained tutoring experience outside of EC, Dominguez decided to become an SI coach as a way to practice being a biology professor.

“I want to be a biology professor because I want to make students interested in learning again, add fun facts and inspire curiosity,” Dominguez said.

So she applied before the fall 2015 semester and was accepted to be a math coach.

“SI coaches attend class sessions and run their own sessions twice a week before or after class,” Dominguez said. “We help students prepare [for the material] and offer more resources.”

SI offers help to selected classes including math, science, psychology and other subjects. Dominguez herself tutors for Math 40, a basic algebra class. She enjoys helping students who have difficulty with math.

“I enjoy seeing students understand concepts. Usually they get so frustrated in math class and they stop caring,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez said Math 40 is a remedial class where students get frustrated. Students aren’t bad but just didn’t receive the proper instruction and she likes to help.

She runs 50 minute sessions where she reviews material learned in class. However, tutoring students isn’t the only thing an SI coach does. Coaches plan sessions in advance, advertise, and meet with other coaches on how to improve themselves.

Dominguez said that supplemental instruction was a lot of work.

“It can be. It takes time to make worksheets and plan out study sessions especially when I have other classes to study for and learn my materials. But it’s all worth it,” Dominguez said.

Her dedication to supplemental instruction has helped students attending sessions.

“I think she does a good job,” Henry Beltran, 34, a counseling major said.

“The math concepts are difficult to understand because they are new,” he said. “Coming to SI has helped me understand them better. At the beginning of the semester I had a D now I have a B.”

Dominguez’s ability to help others understand concepts better is the reason Joseph Tillotson, 39, owner and agent of South Bay Tutors, a tutoring agency of in-home tutors based in the South Bay area, hired Dominguez.

Tillotson said when he first saw Dominguez, that she was friendly, good at explaining, patient and articulate. She has since improved as a tutor.

“She was very shy when I first met her,” Tillotson said. “She speaks a lot more now. She’s a lot more outgoing and better at communicating.”

With her experience as a private tutor and now almost one year as an SI coach she hope to continue helping students.

“I plan on being an SI coach every semester and help students become more confident and sure of themselves in all their subjects,” Dominguez said. “I hope it prepares me for what being a professor would be like.”