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BRISTOL, R.I. – For Joanna Tchobanova ’13 and Noelle Schneider ’25, the path back to �鶹ɫ��Ƭ has led to a deeper connection with the program that first brought them there. Once student-athletes, both now serve as assistant coaches for the  teams while pursuing their Master of Business Administration, navigating the experience side by side while drawing on perspectives shaped by different stages of their journeys.

Tchobanova’s return came gradually, shaped less by design than by timing. After years spent in the working world and on the pool deck as a coach at �鶹ɫ��Ƭ, she found herself in the midst of a career shift.

“I was at a point where I needed a change,” Tchobanova said. “And when the opportunity came up, it just kind of lined up.”

Schneider’s path, by contrast, was immediate. She had only just stepped out of her undergraduate experience, closing a decorated career in the pool and considering what the next chapter might look like beyond competition.

“I knew I wasn’t ready to leave,” Schneider said. “Not the team, not the sport.”

Coaching offered an answer, or at least a beginning. Graduate school was expected, though not necessarily an MBA. What neither anticipated was that they would step into both at the same time.

“It wasn’t planned,” Schneider said. “But it’s worked out great.”

In the classroom, the difference in their timelines is visible in small, almost incidental ways. On the first day of class, Tchobanova arrived without a notebook, a detail she now recalls with a laugh. Schneider, still fluent in the rhythms of student life, had one ready. It was a brief exchange, but it revealed something essential about how they would move through the year: not in parallel, but in collaboration, each filling in the gaps for the other.

“It’s awesome to be around people from different phases of life,” Schneider said. “Joanna has worked for 10 years. She offers really good advice. She’s someone I’ve looked up to for a long time.”

That sense of exchange carries beyond the classroom and onto the pool deck, where roles have shifted but familiarity remains. For Schneider, the transition from swimmer to coach was not seamless, even if it appeared that way from the outside.

“I had imposter syndrome at first,” she said. “As a swimmer, you see the lineup on the board, and you just go. You don’t think about everything that goes into it.”

What she did not see then – the calculations, the decisions, the quiet adjustments – has now become part of her daily work. In those early moments, she often turned to Tchobanova, who had spent years learning those rhythms.

“There’s so much behind the scenes,” Schneider said. “Joanna helped me figure all of that out.”

Tchobanova, in turn, has come to rely on something Schneider carries more instinctively: proximity. Fresh from competition, she understands the pace, the pressure, the small nuances that shape a swimmer’s experience in ways that are difficult to retain over time.

Between them, a balance has formed – less a division of roles than an ongoing exchange of perspective.

It is a tenet that extends into their coursework, where group work and varied backgrounds shape the conversation as much as the material itself. Neither entered the program from a traditional business path – Schneider with a bachelor’s in Psychology and a minor in Anthropology & Sociology, and Tchobanova with a bachelor’s in Biology and professional experience in physical therapy – but both have found that difference to be an advantage rather than a limitation.

“There’s a balance,” Tchobanova said. “Between coaching and the MBA, you’re seeing two different worlds. In athletics, you might have someone leading out loud or someone leading by example. In business, it can be more structured, more about getting things done. But in both, you need different kinds of people. You can’t have everyone leading the same way.”

“It’s nice to have all those perspectives,” Schneider added. “Not everyone’s brain works the same way. It makes everything more well-rounded.”

The same could be said of the team they now help lead.

For Schneider, coaching had been building long before she stepped into her current role. Through her work with younger swimmers at Kingfish Rhode Island and her time with Ocean State Swim Camp, she learned to adapt, improvise, and begin shaping her own coaching philosophy.

“It made me think on my feet,” she said. “You’re working with different athletes all the time, and you start to figure out what works for you, how you want to lead.”

What has emerged is a philosophy that feels, in its simplicity, almost understated.

“Just show up and do the work,” she said. “You get a little better every day.”

For Tchobanova, the language is slightly different, but the idea carries the same weight – refined over time, and tested across roles.

“Trust the process,” she said. “And hold yourself accountable to it. That’s something that applies in athletics, in academics, in everything. You can’t expect results if you’re not willing to put in the work and be consistent with it.”

These are not slogans so much as principles carried forward – first as athletes, now as coaches, and again as students navigating a new academic landscape.

If there is a shared understanding between them, it is that the work – whether in the pool, the classroom, or beyond it – extends past any single result.

“You want to leave the team better than you found it,” Schneider said.

That mindset continues to guide their work as they look ahead to the opportunities that lie beyond graduation, with both remaining open to paths that build on their experiences in coaching, leadership, and graduate study.

“There are a lot of options,” Tchobanova said.

“We don’t have everything figured out,” Schneider added. “But we know this is going to open doors.”