The temptation is to spend all your time at Higher Options visiting the various stands and collecting information. However, students would be well advised to plan their visit around the series of talks which be held throughout the day. The obvious place to start is with the introductory lecture `Which College Place?" which details options in Irish and UK third-level education. This will give you a good overview of the possibilities that are open to you in the future. This year, there are about 35,000 first-year third-level places in State-funded colleges as well as 16,000 Post Leaving Certificate places.

In addition, FAS will register about 4,000 apprentices while almost 900 students will begin training as nurses. Teagasc will open up the outdoor life to about 1,000 students and CERT, the hotel and catering body, made 2,500 offers to students before the CAO offers season begun. About 4,000 students will head for Northern Ireland and British colleges and roughly the same number will find places in private third-level colleges here. So, the choice is vast.

There will be a talk on the CAO system and, as most second-level students will fill out CAO forms, this should be useful for almost everyone visiting the RDS over the next few days. "How to choose a career" is also a useful general option.

Students who are thinking about Post Leaving Certificate courses but who do not want to exclude the option of further study should head to the talk on how PLC courses can transfer to the RTC/DIT system.

There is also a series of more specific careers talks which address areas such as computing, the sports and leisure industry, art, design and communications, engineering and careers in travel and tourism.

And, if you're not sated by all of that, AIB has organised talks on job hunting (curricula vitae and interviews) and small business enterprises. On Thursday evening there is a special session for parents which deals with the admissions systems for Irish and UK colleges and, all importantly, the costs involved.