Your teachers and professors do not give you personal essay prompts because they are dying to read about how your first week of college is making you feel, why you want to major in a particular field, or what you hope to accomplish when you get older.  That is not to say that they will not be interested in why you ultimately tell them, though.  The point is, your instructors give you these essay prompts because they want to see your abilities and gauge how skill you are when it comes to focusing on a specific event or incident, no matter how meaningful or mundane it may be.  Moreover, more than anything, they want you to interest them, they want you to make them interested in your essay.  They want you to pull them into whatever you are describing.

Personal essay topics can help you tremendously, all through the course of your academic career.  In particular, they can be very beneficial when you move on to writing research papers.  For those of you who have experienced personal essay writing, this may be hard to believe.  However, think of some of the in depth, invasive, and even controversial topics you have been given.  It is safe to say that, if you used those topics as a guideline to develop a stronger, more sound thesis, it would be perfect for both more serious essays and research papers.