would you pick your country to study abroad in?

sorry for long post & engforeigner here(Rwandan-American female), from the USA. I plan to study abroad next semester and had the choice of the Netherlands, Iceland or Serbia, and I chose Serbia. I have a close friend who is Montenegrin/ Serbian and she actually deferred me from the decision. Shes really nationalistic and does travel back quite a bit but still called it a dump with nothing to do(??)lol. She told me I’d be better off on Western Europe since most people living there(in Serbia) are trying to leave anywayTBH this shocked me because a lot of what she was saying was I’d be faced with a lot animosity(?) from Serbs back home* since foreigners are regarded with disdain, serbs are very racist, homophobic etc. I’ve interacted with members of her family & other Serbs that aren’t a younger generation and only received kindness. My perception of Balkan people in general is positive honestly, here in the states. I’m taking what she said with a grain of salt since I want to find out for myself and genuinely think it’s a beautiful underrated country. But I guess I made this post because I wanted to know from people who actually live in the region – if you were an outsider and had to pick a country with only online research, would you still pick yours?edit: to clarify about this program – it is just for the beginning of the summer, five weeks + both an educational opportunity as much it is a working one (Internship) located in Belgrade via /r/serbia https://ift.tt/YW4e7wN