S/D: Places to study abroad

What countries would you recommend studying abroad in? As someone who has never left the USA, I don't even know where to start. Based on looking around, though, I'm really interested in Ghana...anyone been there? Other places of interest?

aside from the fact that most of them got sick* during their stay, my friends who studied abroad in ghana really enjoyed it

*they all got better, obv

Do you know what they got sick from? Food, insects...?

Berlin motherfuckers

I honestly am having the hardest time deciding where to study abroad for one full semester. I know ILX may not be the best place to ask so if anyone knows any regularly-updated travel forums where this would fit better please let me know, but you never know who you end up finding on ILX so I figured it's worth a shot.

At first my heart was set on Ghana - most study abroad programs are only offered in countries that probably aren't ALL that different than America or England (industrialized democracies, developed, etc.) and Ghana seems like the perfect counter to all that. Also, they have many opportunities to work with children in orphanages which is something that I think I am interested in doing.

The Thailand program, however, is located in Bangkok, but it looks like they have many opportunities to visit rural Thailand as well as Laos and Cambodia.

The program in India is located in Hyderabad which I don't know much about, but they offer classes on yoga and sitar playing which is very cool.

Anyone who's been to even one of these countries, please help out! Any information would be appreciated.

Whoops, I meant to post that as a new thread, and I didn't even realize that I had already posted a thread on here before (perhaps I was drunk when it was written...? It's certainly possible). It fits here as well though, I suppose.