Living in an apartment gives you a huge advantage in terms of keeping your utility cost low. So in essence, just by choosing to live in one of the apartments near UCF you are already on the right track to saving some money. Apartments are kept more up to date with the constant staff and maintenance on hand, ensuring that the complex's power, water and gas usage are up to current standards. In essence, you are more like to have efficient utility usage in an apartment, than in a house.
However, the efficiency provided by apartments will only serve you so long as you are not wasteful of utilities. You and your future roommates need to ensure that in whichever of the UCF apartments you choose to live in, you will all be aware of not wasting utilities. This means using utilities only when you need it.
If you are not in a room or are leaving a room with the intention of not returning immediately, make sure to turn off the lights. Leaving all the lights on in UCF apartments is going to add a large electricity charge to your bill. This practice also applies to water and gas.
Do not take longer showers or leave the sink on when you don't need it. If your apartment uses gas, make sure that the pilot lights are on at all times. Not only will doing this ensure that gas is being wasted, but you also don't want your apartment filling up with gas. In fact, you should just invest in a Carbon Monoxide alarm to be safe.
Speaking of a gas alarm, there are other purchases you may want to look into that can help you save on utilities. If you are moving into one of the UCF apartments that does not use fluorescent lighting in its units, you may want to consider buying some. Fluorescent lights last longer, burn brighter, and use less electricity. Buying some bulbs for the lights that you most commonly use in your apartment will save you money in the long run.
Another great purchase you may want to look into is a power strip. Most of us have a least one power strip, as they are great for getting a lot of ports from a single wall outlet. Not only do they allow more devices to be connected to the outlet, but they all go through one source. With the flip of a switch, you can cut off the electricity to any of the devices connected, which is great when you don't need to use any of them.
I suggest having at least two power strips in your apartment unit, one for your computer and one for the media center. Both of these areas tend to have a lot of devices, that burn electricity by just being in standby. With a power switch, you can cut off the electricity to many devices with ease, and save money without any real effort.