2nd statement of purpose for graduate school?

[tmae1126]

Hello everyone, I am applying graduate school for the 2nd time. The first time I applied was in Fall 2017. I got into many of the schools I applied to, but I also received a job offer for two years. I decided to take the job because it was only a two-year contract, and go to graduate school after. Now that the Fall 2020 application is open, it is time for me once again to apply for graduate school. I just have two major questions, does my statement of purpose have to be completely different than my first one? I would like to talk about my current and prior experience in public health in my statement. Second question: I talked about a few of my roles in my 1st statement, but can also talk about them in my second?

Thank you so much!

[Sigaba]

Your SOP can be what ever you want. The likelihood that a reader this time around will remember what you wrote two years ago is not especially high--unless it was excellent or especially risible. 

1. You could tweak the one you wrote in 2017. Find ways to trim what you wrote so that you can focus on your last two years' experience. Overall, the changes would be minor.
2. You could start from scratch for the purpose of showing yourself how much you've grown since you took the contract job. The objective here is to write something completely different.

Both options have the possibility of being painful.

(FWIW, were I in your situation, I'd go with option two.)