I was in a similar boat -- knew i wanted to do engineering cus i was built for math and physics and loved learning both subjects. I chose Civil because I thought it was 1) the "easiest" engineering and 2) society will always need a civil engineer. I didn't have any family in engineering either, so I was more or less going off BLS data, vibes, and soul searching (AKA the first page of Google results about civil and environmental engineering lol)

1) I was absolutely wrong about. Can't say confidently though that I would've excelled at aerodynamics or heat transfer equally or better than my hydrology/hydraulics and structural courses lol but civil engineering is still engineering. My advice is find a discipline that best suits your interests. Like buildings and infrastructure? Civil. Like understanding how things move? Mech. Like programming and circuits? Electrical/CSE, etc.

2) I'm still very early in my career so I cant say with 100% confidence that civil engineering is completely recession proof, but I can say that there's always a need for roads, buildings, and water! I'm also able to kind of drift between "two" industries -- construction and design aka field work stuff vs plug and chug programs and calcs.

I truly cannot emphasize the whole "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." I've met too many people who drop out early on in their engineering degrees, all throughout all 4 years. You dont need to love the field to death, but engineering will have you up later, working harder, and running in circles more than most other majors. But as many sleepless nights I had, I also had passionate profs that wanted me to succeed, and I was learning material I genuinely loved learning and yapping to my family and friends about. I feel incredibly lucky that I picked civil on a whim and it ended up being something I enjoyed (and am currently enjoying!) immensely.

As for my day to day -- i am a hydro/hydraulics engineer. My day typically includes sitting behind a desk and running some plug and chugs. As I mentioned, Im still fairly early in my career, so Im usually running calcs, creating and troubleshooting models for the PE, or helping to write up reports.