More than 7,500 school and college students discovered the wealth of opportunities available across the UK at the Essex Higher Education Superfair hosted by the University of Essex.

The two day event at the Colchester Campus was jointly organised by the University, Essex County Council Connexions and UCAS.

It gave students from almost every school in Essex - alongside students from Suffolk and the London boroughs - the chance to talk to representatives from 130 universities, colleges and other organisations from across the UK.

Colchester Sixth Form College student Hannah Duff, from Ipswich, is looking to go on to university to study Politics.

She said: 'I am pretty focused on what I want to do and where I want to go after sixth form. Coming here let me find out about the grades I need and look at back up options.

'It also helped me to get around to see different universities and find out about ones I hadn’t heard about before.'

David Ackery, 17, from Harlow, wants to go on to study Law: 'This has been really helpful. I want to look at what different universities specialise in and their reputation.

'We learn about how important university is at school and with more and more people wanting to go to university, you need to be really focused on what you want.'

University of Essex Marketing Officer Samantha Haylock said: 'Students seem to be very focused and have a very good idea of what they want to study.

'They are well prepared and have detailed questions to ask about the courses they are interested in.

'It is often highly competitive to get a place at the university you want to go to, so an event like this also allows them to show they have done a lot of thinking about the course they want to take and the university they want to go to.'

Visitors were able to attend a packed programme of seminars on the different degree courses available and talks on how to apply for higher education courses, student life and financing your studies.