I think the concept of "distributed systems" is very broad. Do you mean service oriented architectures? That's the practical 'distributed' systems many compani

I think the concept of "distributed systems" is very broad. Do you mean service oriented architectures? That's the practical 'distributed' systems many companies are using today. You don't need a degree- just go work at Amazon for a couple years. Do you mean decentralized systems and algorithms? Paxos, Raft, Bitcoin and TOR? Then sure, you might consider a master's degree. Or just start reading papers online and messing around with code in your spare time.