I think as A Red Panda hints, there is more to the experience than just that experience. I think your T is probably trying to broaden your thinking about your life so it is not just the experience; that is not all that was going on in your life, you were eating, sleeping, taking classes you may have passed so that you were further along at the community college when you got there than you would have been if you had had to start from scratch, etc.

I am impressed that you recognized you were miserable and did something about it! Not everyone does that, some just drop out or quit or keep going even though they hate it, etc. I think your T is trying to get you to see that your life is yours, individual, and wider than any one experience you have while in it.

Forget about what you "learned" at first, just make a list of all the experiences you can think of, the little memories (even if they are horrible) and then rank order them. Somewhere in there you will remember how good a cup of coffee tasted when you had been up all night studying or a joke someone told in the study room/a class that you enjoyed or a moment sitting under a tree in the commons when things were almost good, etc. If nothing else, you learned the sun comes up in the morning?