Personal Experience Ideas

Personal experience essay gives you a student an opportunity to reflect on own experiences and observations in order to bring forth new thoughts. Unlike other essays, a personal essay gives you a chance to utilize dialogue and characterization. It is an excellent way to determine what you really like or dislike whilst revealing your personality to others.

To succeed in writing a personal experience essay, you need to be truthful and natural. You also need to choose a unique topic, something that will set your work apart. Here are some personal experience ideas to help you brainstorm on a suitable topic.

1. Describe a bad experience you went through recently. How did you overcome it?
2. You recently volunteered in a community development project. How did the experience change your thinking?
3. A unique place you visited, perhaps a city or country. How did the experience change your views on life?
4. Write the reasons why you opted to pursue the courses you have chosen.
5. Describe one of your parents. What has he or she accomplished in life? Would you choose the path she chose in life?
6. Analyze your childhood. What were your interests then? How did your upbringing shape your interests?
7. What do you wish to accomplish in 10 years time? How do you plan to accomplish them?
8. Who is or was the most influential person in your life? How has that person contributed to who you are today?
9. If you were to change anything, you did in the past. What would it be and what are your reasons?
10. Talk about how a person who has lost hope can change his or her perspective on life. Use illustrations from your own life.
11. If you were asked to interview a celebrity today (living or deceased), who would it be. Explain why.
12. What do you consider a major accomplishment in life? Who helped to accomplish it?
13. Everyone has a mission to accomplish on earth. What is your mission?
14. Look at yourself in comparison to other people. How do you think your friends characterize you?
15. If you had a choice on where to be right now, which country would it be? What would you be doing and whom would you be with?
16. What are your short term and long-term career goals?
17. What attribute, quality or characteristic distinguish you from the rest? How did you develop this quality?
18. Describe a sudden realization, as if you closed and opened your eyes to a new thought. What was the realization? What are your perceptions on it?
19. Have you ever admired to have something so badly that you would do anything to get it? How did it feel to have received it? Did you become happier or more miserable?
20. Describe your most rewarding experience.
21. Describe your first day travelling abroad. How was the experience?
22. At some point, you have experienced a moment of solitude. How was it and why?
23. Evaluate a significant risk you have taken and its impacts on you. Was it worth it?
24. Describe your first time falling in love. How did you meet the other person? How did you feel at that particular moment?
25. What major contribution have you made in any field? What were the impacts?
26. What do you aspire to be in future? What would you wish to change in your field?
27. Tell us about a recent family vacation you had. How was the experience?
28. Tell us about an interesting research work you carried out. What did you find out?
29. Describe a horrifying experience you had during your childhood. How has it affected you?

As you brainstorm on the above personal experience ideas, ensure you choose something from your own experience. Write down a few notes about the experience on a different sheet of paper. Usually for such an easy, it’s easier to begin with the story itself. Write a formal introduction and conclusion after writing the body itself. 

Use simple past tense of past continuous tense when writing a personal essay. Provide enough detail in order to create vivid imagery in the mind of the reader. Conclude by explaining what you learnt from the experience.