Welcome Dan,
You are in a unique position to get everything right from the very beginning. It's great that you're thinking about this already. I'm only 28, but I've been investing since 16, and now follow the Boglehead approach, and it's the only system I've found that makes sense. I have some comments about your current situation if you don't mind.
"I currently have a traditional IRA with $2,500 that I make monthly contributions to."
At 21k and a student you should be doing the ROTH IRA. If you made all those $2,500 of contributions in 2012, you can call your custodian and "recharacterize" the contributions you already made from traditional to ROTH. This money will now be tax-free upon withdrawal. You can also take out your ROTH contributions (not gains) at any time without penalty so you can use it as an emergency fund.
Roth IRA as an emergency fund - Bogleheads
With that in mind, I would max out the 2012 contribution (which you can do until April 15 of this year) to ROTH for $5,000 for last year. I don't know who your current custodian is, but if you view the ROTH as an emergency fund, keep pretty safe investments in it for now. You might consider something like this fund- only 30% stocks, and the rest is inflation protected bonds, nominal bonds, and cash. The idea is preserving your precious ROTH space now by maxing the 2012 contribution. It's more important how much you save at the beginning than what it's in.
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0308&FundIntExt=INT
The ROTH limit increases to $5,500 for 2013 so that should be your next target by April 15, 2014.
"I am also in the process of creating a CD ladder so I will end up with all five year accounts with one maturing every six months. (Being optimistic towards the interest rates) Each one of these accounts is started with $500 and I will add more once all of the accounts are started."
Rather than do a CD ladder, look into series I savings bonds from treasury direct. You can read up on them here. You can buy $10,000 annually in your name, great emergency fund.
I Savings Bonds - Bogleheads
"I also have a money market account with $12k and a normal checking account."
As mentioned above, I would move these around, max out whatever is remanining in the ROTH for 2012, and then buy $X amount in I bonds for your emergency fund needs. Money market accounts are not FDIC insured and are paying next to nothing. You need to do tax efficient things with your money and use funds to start earning a real return.
"I have one car loan for $13k and a consumer loan that I started to build my credit."
What are the rates on these and how big is the consumer loan? You might want to shop around for refinance deals on the car. Let's say the car loan is 4%. Right now
https://www.penfed.org/refinance-auto-loan/ you can get a 1.49% no cost auto refinance. So theoretically, you could take out a loan for the full value of the car as it lists it at
www.nada.com and then pay off both your existing car loan and the consumer loan (which doesn't sound good to me) at a low rate. Depending on how big the consumer loan is or what the interest rates are, it might change my above advice. Your credit will take care of itself, unless that's a 0% loan, pay it off.
"I am in the process of looking into stocks to create a decent portfolio."
The Boglehead philosophy is pretty easy to follow, which is why I like it.
Bogleheads® investment philosophy - Bogleheads
Video:Bogleheads® investment philosophy - Bogleheads
I can also recommend
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing revised edition by Larimore et al.
and
All About Asset Allocation 2nd edition by Rick Ferri.
That should give you plenty of homework for now.
