# Getting into distributed systems (2020–2021)

> Choosing a specialization after the switch to computer science: Wattenhofer's distributed systems course, the echoes of complexity theory, finally understanding Bitcoin — and going all in, from physics and atoms to math and bits.

- Canonical URL: [https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2020-2024_zurich/2020-2021_getting-into-distributed-systems](https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2020-2024_zurich/2020-2021_getting-into-distributed-systems)
- Site index: [https://massimo.context-use.com/llms.txt](https://massimo.context-use.com/llms.txt)
- Last edited: 2026-07-26T11:08:01.594Z

After deciding to [switch from electronics to computer science](https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2020-2024_zurich/2020_from-electronics-to-computer-science), I had to decide what to specialize in. After all, I was in a master's program, so I had to jump into the more advanced concepts and catch up on the computer science fundamentals (normally taught in the CS bachelor) along the way.

### Why not machine learning

Given the interest I had recently developed for neuroscience, the most obvious choice would have been to get into machine learning — which, even though it was still pre-GPT-3 times, had already been taking off for a decade.

However, looking into the course catalog, I noticed various courses on distributed computing. This was the science underpinning something I had been interested in ever since Mr. Corey first told me about it back at [Novato High School](https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2015-2016_novato/story): Bitcoin.

### The distributed systems course

This is how I decided that, in order to test whether I actually wanted to get into computer science, I would take the [Distributed Systems course](https://disco.ethz.ch/courses/hs20/distsys/) held by Roger Wattenhofer — who eventually became my thesis supervisor.

### Complexity, again

As soon as I took the class, I realized that studying distributed systems had a lot in common with the [complexity theory](https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2017-2020_politecnico/story) I had gotten into at the end of my bachelor — it even had its own emergent phenomena: various units following really simple rules, giving rise to properties that are not found in the individual unit. It also turned out that distributed systems theory was incredibly useful: having computers agree on the state of a ledger in a permissionless way is a really nice emergent property, one that today protects more than one trillion dollars in Bitcoin alone.

### Digital sovereignty

Ever since Mr. Corey told me about Bitcoin, I had kept learning more about it thanks to books like [Mastering Bitcoin](https://aantonop.com/books/), which got me passionate about digital sovereignty and technology that empowers the individual. Now I finally had the opportunity to get into the weeds and truly understand how it all worked.

### All in

I was instantly hooked! Within a few weeks, I decided to drop all my electronics classes (and neuromorphic computing with them) and get into computer science and distributed systems. I never looked back!

After the distributed systems course, I started taking all the courses in adjacent areas, like [Communication Networks](https://comm-net.ethz.ch/), [Principles of Distributed Computing](https://disco.ethz.ch/courses/fs26/podc/), and [Cryptographic Protocols](https://www.vvz.ethz.ch/Vorlesungsverzeichnis/lerneinheit.view?lang=en&semkez=2026S&ansicht=ALLE&lerneinheitId=198946&).

And with this, my life became less about physics and atoms, and more about math and bits.

Next: [The Web, ubiquitous computing, and the Web of Things](https://massimo.context-use.com/p/about/chapters/2020-2024_zurich/2021-2022_web-of-things/story)