Coming up with a strong personal essay topic can feel overwhelming—you’re not alone. Studies show that over 60% of students struggle to find the right idea, and with the rise of AI essay generators (Chat GPT, Deepseek, Grok, Claude etc), the pressure to create something original is even higher. While AI tools can help with structure and grammar, they often lack the depth, personal voice, and emotional connection that make a personal essay truly stand out.
With colleges and academic institutions placing more emphasis on authentic storytelling and critical thinking, a well-crafted personal essay can make a real impact. Whether you’re reflecting on a life-changing experience, sharing a personal belief, or narrating a memorable event, your essay should capture your unique perspective in a way that resonates with readers.
This guide will walk you through 100+ engaging personal essay topics, along with practical tips to help you write a compelling, heartfelt essay that feels real and leaves a lasting impression.
Also, you will get an idea of how the personal essay topics can be formed using personal life experiences. An essential component of writing personal essays is to use a combination of personal experiences and narrative style in writing to provide insight into how the personal experience went from the eyes of the narrator.
How to write personal essays?
Before writing a personal essay, always keep in mind that your writing will be subjective and explained in a narrative style. You have to write your thoughts, opinions, and experiences to get the reader’s attention and facilitate his understanding of how you went through a particular situation.
Your personal essay must be written in the first person using the first person pronouns. You cannot narrate your ideas from some other person’s perspective. So, it is necessary that you use the first person pronouns to give a real glimpse of an event or experience.
To write a personal essay, first, you need to choose an attractive topic that captivates the attention of the reader in the first look. So, if you are a college student writing a personal essay, then you might be given an assignment on essays such as:
- Personal opinion about an issue
- Experience in a situation
- Your observation of a particular situation
- Share a story of a life experience
- Describe an event, place or a person
- Relate some events with your life
You may need to choose from one of these topics to write a personal essay. Your topic selection is followed by an introductory paragraph in which you try to gather the readers’ attention. Try to introduce with some catchy lines and highlight the subject matter within first two or three lines.
Now, when you have introduced your topic, you must write the main idea of your essay so that the readers are aware of what you are going to discuss further. The body paragraph follows the introduction, and start writing with your account of the event or situation you are going to describe. It is better to make an outline of your essay before you start writing your body paragraph.
Your essay will be managed better with an outline of body paragraphs as they are explanatory and need some clarification in terms of subjective explanation of sharing a thought or story. Now, focus on your ideas and gather your thoughts to write the essay clearly. Don’t use slang words and any fictional ideas as they will not get the readers to your real-life experiences.
Once you are done with the explanatory part, conclude your thoughts and opinions with a concise statement detailing what you have learned from your experience and how it has benefitted you in changing your life.
What are personal persuasive essays, and why choose them for personal essay writing?
Personal persuasive essays are written in the context of an opinion about an issue to persuade the readers and create a realization in them to accept your thoughts and opinions on the issue. Personal persuasive essays are different from other essays in terms of context and meaningfulness of the ideas of the writer.
Personal persuasive essays take the form of an elaborative approach to the writer’s context of what he feels about a situation or an event. So, it differs from argumentative essays, which usually revolve around an argument to set the pace of a writer arguing about something, taking an argumentative approach to explaining an event.
Keep in mind that your personal opinion is different from your arguments and explanation. So, personal persuasive essays are written to:
- Improve critical thinking
- Challenging new ideas with own thought perspective
- Demonstrate creativity
- Enhance critical analysis skills
- Thought-provoking and opinion-based content
Have you decided what to choose after reading about the different types of personal essays? You have a long list of personal essays to choose from for your college assignment, and it is all about your choice of what you prefer to write for your personal essay.
Personal essay topics: How do you choose one?
A vast list of personal essay topics is available for the students to choose one of the most relevant topics that best define their writing needs. So, you can take any of the topics considering your need to draft a relevant essay to portray your personal experience. It may be an event-related topic or a travel diary. You can also choose from a list of family and friends to write about your relationships and life thoughts on how the person has changed your life.
You can also use personal challenge essay ideas to write a context of an obstacle you faced in your life. So, as long as you choose a relevant subject matter, you can captivate the reader and make them realize that your personal essay develops their interest in reading. Some of the examples of personal essays are:
- How did you and your best friend meet?
- How has a particular incident changed your life?
- What makes you special for your parents?
- What is your experience of overcoming fear?
- How did you manage your studies at college?
- A place that is near to your heart?
- The experience of leaving a place?
- A difficult choice you made in life
- A disappointment you had in your life
- Something that you regret
- A turn of events that changed you as a person
- Your favourite personality
- A book that changed your personality
- A person who helped you the most
- How money matters in your life
- The biggest loss you had
- Words that bother you
- When you got the desire to run away
- When you get an urge to leave something
- Where would you spend your life
- Your life at college
- How would you change someone’s life
- What super power you choose to have
- Do you believe in life after death
- Your favorite time in recent years
Personal narrative essays
You have a wide variety of personal essays to choose from for your college assignment and write them in the form of a narrative that gives an insight into how you have experienced something. A personal narrative essay is written in a descriptive form as an account of your journey toward a memorable trip, event, and experience. So, you can also choose to write a personal narrative essay which can be penned down the same way the personal essays have been described above for your understanding.
Remember that you avoid arguments in a personal narrative essay and also choose relative words to tell the readers that you have been in a situation in which you are writing a personal account to explain the turns of events and your reaction to them. Some of the widely used personal narrative essay topics are:
- Tell me about your first day at college
- An account on a trip or first visit to a place
- Your childhood memories
- Any failure you ever faced
- What games did you like the most as a kid
- The biggest challenge you have overcome yet
- Your first birthday party
- An experience you remember
- Have you ever been in a difficult situation
- What would you like to eat as a kid
- How did you overcome your childhood fears
- Did you go on a trip as a child
- How you meet your best friend
- Your most memorable event
- When did you cook your first food at home
Personal experience essays
Have you ever experienced a strange incident? Do you feel happy when you are with your friends? Well, if this is the case, then you will have some very interesting personal experience essays from within your life. A personal experience essay describes a first-person view of an experience you have felt or observed. You don’t need to take up a thing from different books or daily life things to choose a topic for the essay.
Instead, you can select a personal essay topic based on your personal experience with friends, family, and anyone else you remember. You can describe your feelings while you are experiencing something. But you need to be explanatory rather than applying critical thinking in these essays. We have made a list of top personal experience essays here:
- Happiest moment in your life.
- Strange part of your college life.
- Explain your Christmas celebrations.
- How did you come across your first driving experience?
- What was your best day at school?
- How did you meet your best friend?
- Explain your recent travel experience.
- How you learn something out of a road incident?
- Describe any accident you witnessed during travelling.
- Explain your worst nightmare.
- Experience of your first day at college?
- A relationship breakup experience.
- Amazing food you come across during a trip.
- Any disaster you witnessed recently?
- How did you spend your first pocket money?
Personal essays for college essay writing
Are you a college student looking for some exciting personal essays? Do you need to choose a topic for your personal essay writing? If this is so, then we have prepared a list of some of the best personal essays for college essay writing. You can select any of these topics to write your college essays and customize them according to your needs.
We have compiled a list of top essays for college essay writing. Keep in mind that college essay writing is nothing different from simple essay writing. The basic difference is that it is meant for college students and given to them as assignments or class activities. So, you do not need to add anything new to these essays; you can write them according to the method described above. Here is a list of some personal essays for college students:
- How did you make your first relationship?
- Explain your life goals
- What are your future study plans?
- How do you take freedom as a part of an ordinary person’s life?
- What things do you want to do in your life?
- Explain the things you regret the most.
- Your encounter with a strange thing or incident.
- How did you come across your first relationship?
- Describe the experiences of your hostel life.
- How did you get your first appreciation letter in school?
- Describe some intellectual challenges that you want to solve.
- Have you ever learned from your failure?
- How has college life changed your personality?
- Have you been to a place you never wanted to go?
- Explain your family commitments.
Personal persuasive essays
Personal persuasive essays are written to describe your opinion of something. You can write down your feelings and observations on some event, incident or person with the help of a personal persuasive essay. However, you need to persuade your audience by making a clear point towards something you want them to acknowledge or like. Some of the best personal persuasive essay topics are:
- How to make the world a better place to live?
- Is it ethical to put animals in zoos?
- Should cigarette smoking be banned due to health concerns?
- What is your favourite place for everyone to visit?
- How do you see the current economic situation in the country?
- Do you agree with political parties using influence to make certain laws?
- What should everyone do in their daily life?
- What is the secret to good health?
- How do you save money from monthly expenses?
- Do you recommend studying abroad?
- Is loving someone a strength or a weakness?
- How to avoid environmental pollution?
- Explain your idea of technological advancements.
- Does science affect human development?
- Do you consider bank loans to manage your finances?
Conclusion:
Writing a personal essay is all about sharing your experiences, thoughts, and emotions in a way that connects with the reader. Whether you’re telling a story, expressing an opinion, or reflecting on a life lesson, choosing the right topic and structuring your essay well can make a huge difference. The key is to stay authentic, use a strong narrative, and make your essay engaging from start to finish.
If you need help brainstorming topics or refining your writing, Readessay online class helpers and academic helpers are here to support you. Get expert guidance and take your personal essay to the next level!
