A girl who was in our University's Badminton club was on an exchange from America. She seemed to enjoy it and had no complaints. Foreign students seem happy and well looked after - our university seems to be 'big' on diversity, considering our student union really presses it forward.
I can't speak for any other Universities except mine, which is the University of Derby.
Pros
Nice, friendly city. There's plenty of Nightclubs if that's your sort of thing, as well as venues for gigs. A lot of open-mic too. It's a bus journey away from Nottingham, which has Rock City, a venue which gets the top bands in.
In terms of student activities to do and plenty to get involved with. With several sports clubs and teams, who for the most part are made up of friendly people, it's only the Rugby team that has bad rep.
Other activities, you have clubs and societies, the geeks societies are quite social. There's a full list of societies on the our Student Union's website. I am President of the Storytelling society and involved with the Radio and Anime (friends dragged me in and converted me), I am meaning to rejoin Badminton, but it costs more to be a member of sports team, so I'm thinking on it.
The student union is always holding events and organising things. We have stuff like RAGE week (charity fundraising), studentship festival (arts, performances and things to do with 'diversity'), Snow and May balls (the big event of the year), various gigs, and student lead performances too - we're performing for the studentship festival.
The University itself. I think it depends on your course, I'm loving the helpfulness of my lecturers, they're decent, they're cool, they're fun and outgoing. My friend who's studying English Lit on the other hand has a lot of complaints. But in general, I think good lecturers. For any problems, the student union is there to help. My advice would be to get involved with what you can, it's not only good CV/Resume building, but it enhances your experience.
Easy to make friends, even if you're a dweeb. No doubt people will want to make friends with a Canadian.
Cons
They've sacked the guy who makes the timetables and has replaced him with Hal, who seems to purposefully cause clashes for joint-honours students and places lectures at odd times. Such is the behavior of Hal, "Lectures at sensible times, I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that".
The University is slow to solve problems. The complaints process is silly.
The administration is flawed.
The University network system, UDO is an unpopular system that a lot of students have to use.
^That is all I can say about my university off the top of my head, if you have questions, I can answer them. But I can't speak for others. I hope this helps your decision.