Hi, I'm the person behind Compound Campus.
Köln is home. I finished high school through the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme, in classes with people from three dozen countries, which is honestly where the itch to keep living internationally started. I've never set foot in a university lecture hall: what's next is real-world experience instead. I'm confirmed for two internships abroad, in Budapest from October through December, then Karlsruhe from January through March or April at an early-stage startup consultancy. Compound Campus started as a personal doc I kept for myself while figuring things out here in Köln: which bank actually let me open an account without a permanent address, how to keep a €50/month savings plan going, whether a refurbished iPhone from a marketplace was actually reliable, and it turned into a small site once a few friends asked me to just send them the link.
Why this site exists
Most personal-finance content online is written for a general audience, often American, often assuming you already have a permanent address, a local ID, and years of runway to figure things out. That's not the reality of moving to a new country for a semester, an internship, or a degree. You need a bank account this week, not eventually. You're budgeting in a currency you didn't grow up using. And buying a laptop or phone new often isn't realistic on a student budget stretched across rent, textbooks, and the occasional overpriced canal-side coffee.
Compound Campus exists to close that gap: practical, specific, first-hand information for international and exchange students navigating money and tech decisions in Europe, written by someone doing the same thing, not a brand trying to sell you a product.
How I choose what to write about
I only publish comparisons and guides based on accounts I've opened, apps I've used, or purchases I've made myself (or, where noted, researched carefully alongside a friend's first-hand experience). If I haven't used something directly, the article says so.
Firsthand testing
Screenshots, fee structures, and limits are checked against my own accounts and statements, not just marketing pages.
Plain language
No jargon without an explanation. If a term like "Sparplan" or "SEPA" shows up, I explain it the first time.
Europe-specific
Written for Anmeldung appointments, German bureaucracy, SEPA transfers, and Erasmus timelines, not generic advice translated from a US context.
Affiliate disclosure & editorial independence
Honest disclosure: Compound Campus is set up to eventually earn a small commission through affiliate or referral programs with some of the banks, brokers, and marketplaces mentioned on this site. That's the long-term plan for keeping it running independently. As of publishing, I have not yet joined any partner program, so every external link on this site currently goes directly to the company's real homepage, with no tracking codes or referral IDs attached.
If and when I do join an affiliate program, I will: (1) update the disclosure banner on the relevant article to say so explicitly, (2) never let a commission determine whether a product gets a positive review, and (3) continue to recommend the same product I'd recommend to a friend regardless of whether it pays a commission. Recommendations are based on my own usage and honest comparison of fees, features, and reliability, not on which company pays the most per signup.
What this site is not
Compound Campus is not a licensed financial advisory service, and nothing here is personalized financial, legal, tax, or immigration advice. Articles about investing, banking, or budgeting reflect general educational information and my own experience as a student. Always verify current terms directly with providers, and talk to a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation, especially around tax residency, which can vary a lot for international students.
Get in touch
Alongside getting ready for these internships, I spend a lot of time thinking about how small projects like this one actually get built. Compound Campus is as much a real project as it is a resource. If you've got a bank, broker, or refurbished-tech question I haven't covered yet, or you spot something on this site that's out of date, I'd genuinely like to hear about it as the site grows.