Eleven college students and recent college graduates are headed to copy editing internships after completing 10 days of intensive preparation at The University of Texas at Austin.

The interns are among a group of undergraduate and graduate students placed in internships in copy editing, sports copy editing, business reporting and digital journalism.

The highly competitive national program is operated by the Dow Jones News Fund. The more than 750 applicants had to take a test and complete an extensive application before being considered.

Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated the sessions in this 20th residency program at UT-Austin.

In the latter half of the pre-internship training, participants produced three issues of a model newspaper, the Southwest Journalist, as well as a companion online product, swjournalist.com.

The UT-News Fund interns serve internships of 10 to 12 weeks.

Grants from the News Fund and contributions from participating news organizations cover the participants’ training, including housing, meals, transportation and instruction.

Participating newspapers also pay interns a weekly wage for their internship work. Students returning to their universities after the internships are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the News Fund.

Beth Butler and Bradley Wilson served as co-directors of the workshop with assistance from Lourdes Jones, senior administrative associate of the UT School of Journalism.

Faculty included George Sylvie, associate professor at UT-Austin; Mark Grabowski, associate professor at Adelphi University; and Linda Shockley, managing director of the News Fund in Princeton, New Jersey.

Students also had the opportunity to visit with Dan Cunningham, senior editor of the Houston Chronicle; and Will Weisert, administrative correspondent at the Austin Bureau of the Associated Press.